Harvard Biodesign Lab

Announcements

• Congrats to Dr. David Farrell, Dr. Philipp Arens, and Dr. Myles Cooper on successfully defending their theses!

About the Lab

The Harvard Biodesign Lab brings together researchers from the engineering, industrial design, medical, and business communities to develop robots and smart medical devices that are specifically intended for interacting and cooperating with humans. Our work is accomplished through new approaches to design and fabrication of actuation and sensing components (e.g. using soft materials) in addition to the development of appropriate control strategies for systems that integrate these components. These technologies are inspired by the results of experiments in human biomechanics and their development is influenced by time spent in the operating room to understand the unmet needs from clinicians. Current research projects focus on wearable robotics to assist disabled and able-bodied people, as well as tools for minimally invasive diagnosis and treatment of disease. Lab members work closely with industrial partners and technical experts to translate these technologies into products that meet real-world medical needs.

News

06/2026 - Biodesign lab and Luigi's Fishtank hosts Abilities: Amplified at the Hatch Memorial Shell!

05/2026 - David Farrell, Philipp Arens, and Myles Cooper graduate!

04/2026 - Yichu Jin et al.'s article on "Minimal-calibration Multimodal Wearable Sensing for Long-duration Three-dimensional Shoulder Kinematics" is published in Nature Sensors.

03/2026 - Dabin Choe and Digby Chappell et al.'s work on "Balancing Biomechanics and Preference in Assistive Device Tuning via Metric-regularized Optimization" is published in IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering.

03/2026 - Prabhat Pathak and Sarah Cavanagh et al.'s work on "3D Evaluation of Abnormal Upper Extremity Joint Coupling Post-stroke" is published in IEEE Transactions on Neural Systems and Rehabilitation Engineering.

02/2026 - Myles Cooper's work on "Optimization of an Axial Flux Motor-cycloid Gear Actuator for Sizing Wearable Robots" is published in IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics.

05/2025 - Yichu Jin, Kate Zhou, Lauren Baker, Chih-Kang Chang, Dabin Choe, Connor McCann, and Chris Siviy graduate!

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