Nadia Figueroa

Nadia Figueroa is the Shalini and Rajeev Misra Presidential Assistant Professor in the Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics (MEAM) Department at the University of Pennsylvania. She holds secondary appointments in Computer and Information Science (CIS) and Electrical and Systems Engineering (ESE), and is a core faculty member at the GRASP Lab. Prior to Penn, she was a Postdoctoral Associate at MIT’s CSAIL and earned her PhD in Robotics from EPFL under Prof. Aude Billard.

Her research focuses on physical and perceptual adaptive intelligence for robots, enabling fluid collaboration with humans in dynamic environments. Key applications include robot learning from demonstration, human-robot co-manipulation, safe navigation in human-centric spaces, and rehabilitation robotics. Her work integrates

• machine learning
• control theory
• artificial intelligence
• biomechanics
• psychology

with guarantees of stability, safety, and robustness.

Recent publications highlight advancements in

• reactive collision avoidance
• dynamical system learning
• intent estimation
• EEG-driven assistive control
• origami-based reconfigurable robots

across platforms like autonomous vehicles and humanoid robots. She has authored a 2022 textbook on dynamical systems for robot control and received the Presidential Assistant Professorship at Penn.