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Boyuan Chen Named to ASME Mechanical Engineering Magazine Watch List

Boyuan Chen, Dickinson Family Assistant Professor in the Thomas Lord Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science at Duke University, has been named to the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) 2025 Mechanical Engineering Magazine Watch List.

5/19/25 Pratt School of Engineering

Empowering Robots with Human-Like Perception to Navigate Unwieldy Terrain

A new Duke-developed AI system fuses vision, vibrations, touch and its own body states to help robots understand and move through difficult in-the-wild environments.

5/15/25 Pratt School of Engineering

Teaching Theory of Mind to Robots to Enhance Collaboration

Duke roboticists present HUMAC, a new framework that enables robots to collaborate like humans with just 40 minutes of simple coaching.

5/9/25 Pratt School of Engineering

Focusing Mechatronics on Medicine

New faculty member Joanna Bertram brings interdisciplinary, fine-movement robotics research to Pratt.

4/23/25 Office of the Duke Forest

How Drones are Transforming Research in the Duke Forest and Beyond

Boyuan Chen's General Robotics Lab is just one group using the opportunities that Duke Forest provides to design, test and train drones.

4/9/25 Pratt School of Engineering

Want to 3D Print a Walking Robot? Just Ask Your Computer.

Researchers have developed a platform called Text2Robot that leverages generative AI to design and deliver functional robots with just a few spoken words.

1/23/25 Duke Today

Boyuan Chen on Strengths and Limitations of Robotics

Robots excel at repetitive tasks like manufacturing but face challenges in adaptability and social intelligence. Boyuan Chen, is advancing robotics to help machines perceive their environment, adapt to real-world scenarios, and collaborate effectively with humans.

Recent Highlights

Student Award

4 Students won 2025 NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP)

Alexey Khotimsky (from Prof. Joanna Deaton's lab), Nils Roede (from Prof. Boyuan Chen's lab), Chris Oswald (from Prof. Boyuan Chen's lab), and Vincent Wang (from Prof. Leila Bridgeman's lab) have won the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP).

Faculty Award

Boyuan Chen Awarded Dickinson Family Assistant Professorship

Boyuan’s research advances embodied intelligence by designing systems that learn, reason, and adapt through perception and interaction, inspiring future robots with high-level cognitive skills to assist and enhance human creativity.

Faculty Award

Prof. Siobhan Oca has been awarded the Washburn Early Educator Award at the American Society of Engineering Educators by the Women in Engineering Division

Prof. Siobhan Rigby Oca designs and implements robotics-related curricula for undergraduates and graduate students in a dual role of Assistant Professor of the Practice and Director of Master’s degree programs for Robotics and Autonomy.