Bram Vanderborght

Prof. Bram Vanderborght is a Full Professor at Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), specializing in robotics and mechatronics. He holds a PhD in Applied Sciences and has led research in humanoid robotics, rehabilitation robotics, and variable impedance actuators. Currently coordinates EU projects like SHERO (self-healing soft robotics) and SMART (Marie Curie ITN). Active in over 97 projects and 676 publications.

Education: Mechanical Engineering (VUB, 2003), PhD in Applied Sciences (2007). Postdoctoral research at Italian Institute of Technology (2007-2010), and research director at Universitatea Babes-Bolyai (2011-2016).

Research Interests: Human-robot interaction, robot-assisted therapy for ASD children, soft robotics, and actuator technology. Key focus areas include adaptive compliance in robotics and rehabilitation systems.

Recent Articles: Focus on reinforcement learning frameworks, multi-robot task scheduling, and sensor integration for soft robots. Highlights include energy-aware optimization and safety-critical control systems.

Awards: Best Paper Awards (2006, 2008, 2012, 2020, 2021), ERC Starting Grant (SPEAR), and leadership in EU FET projects.

Advising & Grants: Supervised over 40 research projects and doctoral theses. Current initiatives include SPINOFF (exoskeletons for workers) and the Sustainable Robotics Hub (2025-2029).

Labs/Teams: Federated labs AI and Robotics. Collaborations span global institutions like AIST (Japan), JRL, and Springer Nature publications.