Emergent Construction in Insect and Robotic Swarms, Kirstin Hagelskjaer Petersen / Design Modelling Symposium 2026
Event details
| Date | 10.09.2026 |
| Hour | 13:30 › 14:30 |
| Speaker | Kirstin Hagelskjaer Petersen |
| Location |
Foyer SG
|
| Category | Conferences - Seminars |
| Event Language | English |
Kirstin Hagelskjaer Petersen - Emergent Construction in Insect and Robotic Swarms
EPFL is pleased to welcome Kirstin Hagelskjaer Petersen (Cornell University) for a keynote lecture on collective robotics and bio-inspired swarm systems. This lecture is free and open to all.
Kirstin H. Petersen is Associate Professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Cornell University, where she is the Aref and Manon Lahham Faculty Fellow and a Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability Faculty Fellow. She leads the Collective Embodied Intelligence Lab, which designs and coordinates robot collectives capable of behaviors beyond the reach of any individual, alongside studies of how social insects achieve the same in nature. Her work spans micro- and mesoscale robots, soft robots, bio-hybrid systems, and active matter, with applications in collective construction, digital agriculture, biomedical procedures, and environmental monitoring and remediation.
She completed her PhD at Harvard University and the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, where her doctoral research was featured on the cover of Science, followed by a postdoctoral fellowship at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems and a fellowship with the Max Planck ETH Center for Learning Systems. She was named one of RoboHub's 25 Women in Robotics You Need to Know (2018) and has received a Packard Fellowship for Science and Engineering (2019), the NSF CAREER Award (2021), the Cornell College of Engineering Excellence in Research Award (2021), and the Douglas Whitney '61 Excellence in Teaching Award (2022). She was elevated to IEEE Senior Member in 2024.
The lecture is part of the Design Modelling Symposium 2026, which brings together keynotes and research discussions on the shifting relationship between designers and intelligent machines across materials, people, and responsibility. Registration for the full symposium is available at the link.
Learn more about Kirstin and the Collective Embodied Intelligence Lab
Registration for the symposium ↗︎
EPFL is pleased to welcome Kirstin Hagelskjaer Petersen (Cornell University) for a keynote lecture on collective robotics and bio-inspired swarm systems. This lecture is free and open to all.
Kirstin H. Petersen is Associate Professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Cornell University, where she is the Aref and Manon Lahham Faculty Fellow and a Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability Faculty Fellow. She leads the Collective Embodied Intelligence Lab, which designs and coordinates robot collectives capable of behaviors beyond the reach of any individual, alongside studies of how social insects achieve the same in nature. Her work spans micro- and mesoscale robots, soft robots, bio-hybrid systems, and active matter, with applications in collective construction, digital agriculture, biomedical procedures, and environmental monitoring and remediation.
She completed her PhD at Harvard University and the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, where her doctoral research was featured on the cover of Science, followed by a postdoctoral fellowship at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems and a fellowship with the Max Planck ETH Center for Learning Systems. She was named one of RoboHub's 25 Women in Robotics You Need to Know (2018) and has received a Packard Fellowship for Science and Engineering (2019), the NSF CAREER Award (2021), the Cornell College of Engineering Excellence in Research Award (2021), and the Douglas Whitney '61 Excellence in Teaching Award (2022). She was elevated to IEEE Senior Member in 2024.
The lecture is part of the Design Modelling Symposium 2026, which brings together keynotes and research discussions on the shifting relationship between designers and intelligent machines across materials, people, and responsibility. Registration for the full symposium is available at the link.
Learn more about Kirstin and the Collective Embodied Intelligence Lab
Registration for the symposium ↗︎
Practical information
- General public
- Free