Congratulations Maya Lassiter!

May 11th, 2021

Published by Penn Engineering Research & Innovation Weekly Newsletter

Maya Lassiter, a 3rd-year ESE PhD student in Marc Miskin’s Nanorobotics lab was selected as a member of the inaugural class of the Penn Presidential PhD Fellowship.

Lassiter’s work in the Miskin lab involves the first demonstration of micro-robots with on-board logic. Building on top of complex circuitry, Lassiter enables movement by integrating atomically-thin electrochemical actuators that seamlessly interface with the underlying electronics. These robots can then deploy and interact with surrounding cells and microorganisms; moving at the size scale of cells, pushing, pulling, and rearranging cells are possible.

Lassiter’s work collapses the distance between building and using electronics as she brings belonging, ownership, and agency to electronics fabrication—opening the door to ask why and how things are made.

Read more about Maya and her work here. | Read more about the inaugural class here.