People


Faculty

Cynthia Sung

Cynthia Sung

Associate Professor, MEAM; Secondary faculty, CIS & ESE

Cynthia Sung is an Associate Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics (MEAM) and a member of the General Robotics, Automation, Sensing & Perception (GRASP) lab at the University of Pennsylvania. She completed a Ph.D. (2016) in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT, advised by Prof. Daniela Rus, and a B.S. (2011) in Mechanical Engineering from Rice University. Her research interest is computational design and fabrication for robotic systems, with a particular focus on origami-inspired and compliant robots. She is the recipient of a 2023 ONR Young Investigator award, 2019 NSF CAREER award, 2020 Johnson & Johnson Women in STEM2D Scholars Award, and a 2017 Popular Mechanics Breakthrough Award.

Research Groups

Publications

KGripper: A Push-On Lift-Twist-Off Passive Perching Mechanism

Publisher Journal of Mechanisms and Robotics

Effect of Jet Coordination on Underwater Propulsion with the Multi-Robot SALP System

Publisher International Conference on Soft Robotics (RoboSoft)

Mapping Terrain Properties and Traversal Risk by Walking

Publisher APS Global Physics Summit

Origami Robots

Publisher Handbook on Soft Robotics

Supplementary Materials: Reparametrization of 3D CSC Dubins Paths Enabling 2D Search

Publisher International Workshop on Algorithmic Foundations of Robotics (WAFR)

Reparametrization of 3D CSC Dubins paths enabling 2D search

Publisher International Workshop on the Algorithmic Foundations of Robotics

CurveQuad: A centimeter-scale origami quadruped that leverages curved creases to self-fold and crawl with one motor

Publisher IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems

Design and Control of a Tunable-Stiffness Coiled-Spring Actuator

Publisher IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation

A Task-to-Intelligence Mapping: When is embodied intelligence worth designing?

Publisher IOP Conference Series: Materials Science and Engineering

Electronics Design and Verification for Robots With Actuation and Sensing Requirements

Publisher International Design Engineering Technical Conferences and Computers and Information in Engineering Conference

The Impact of Robotics Expertise on Iterative Robot Design Decisions and Vulnerability to Design Fixation

Publisher International Design Engineering Technical Conferences and Computers and Information in Engineering Conference

Drag Coefficient Characterization of the Origami Magic Ball

Publisher ASME International Design Engineering Technical Conferences and Computers and Information in Engineering Conference

Increasing Reliability of Self-Folding of the Origami Hypar

Publisher ASME Journal of Mechanisms and Robotics

Forward kinematics and control of a segmented tunable-stiffness 3-D continuum manipulator

Publisher IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation

EvoRobogami: co-designing with humans in evolutionary robotics experiments

Publisher Proceedings of the Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference

Soft Hybrid Aerial Vehicle via Bistable Mechanism

Publisher IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA)

Programmable Stiffness and Applications of 3D Printed TPU Grid Lattices

Publisher International Design Engineering Technical Conferences and Computers and Information in Engineering Conference

REBOund: Untethered origami jumping robot with controllable jump height

Publisher Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)

Microfabricated Foldable Wings for Centimeter-Scale Microflyers

Publisher Journal of Microelectromechanical Systems

Optimal structure synthesis for environment augmenting robots

Publisher Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)

Animatronic soft robots by additive folding

Publisher SAGE Publications

Leveraging compliance in origami robot legs for robust and natural locomotion

Publisher International Meeting of Origami Science, Mathematics, and Education

Programmable 3-d surfaces using origami tessellations

Publisher International Meeting on Origami in Science, Mathematics, and Education (OSME)

Spotlight on origami robots

Publisher Science Robotics

Functional co-optimization of articulated robots

Publisher Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)

Interactive robogami: An end-to-end system for design of robots with ground locomotion

Publisher International Journal of Robotics Research (IJRR)

Self-folded soft robotic structures with controllable joints

Publisher Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)

News

GRASP News

The GRASP Lab Goes to ISER 2025

July 17, 2025


Faculty News

Stentix Wins 2025 Y-Prize

January 30, 2025


Student News

Y-Prize Technologies 2024-25

September 24, 2024


Faculty News

GRASP News

Student News

A Centimeter-Scale Quadruped Leverages Curved-Crease Origami

October 25, 2023


GRASP News

ICRA 2022 – GRASP Accepted Papers

February 9, 2022


GRASP News

2021 IROS Conference Papers

August 6, 2021


GRASP News

ICRA 2021 Results

June 4, 2021


GRASP News

ICRA 2021 – GRASP Accepted Papers

March 3, 2021


GRASP News

ICRA 2020 Recap

June 24, 2020


Faculty News

Cynthia Sung Receives 2019 NSF CAREER Award

April 1, 2019


Faculty News

Small Robots Inspired by Origami in Penn News

September 7, 2017


Ph.D. Students

Dongsheng Chen

Robotics MSE '19; PhD, MEAM


Daniel Feshbach

PhD, CIS


Neha Peddinti

Robotics MSE - Accelerated Master's


Gabriel Unger

PhD, MEAM - MEAM MSE '20


Alumni

Ashwath Anbuchelvan

Research Assistant, Sung Robotics Lab '24-'25 - Mechatronics Engineer, Rapyuta Robotics


Wei-Hsi Chen

PhD, ESE '22, Postdoctoral Researcher, ESE '22-'26 - Assistant Professor, North Carolina State University


Christopher Kim

PhD, MEAM '25 - Systems Engineer for Optimus Actuator Test, Tesla


Shivangi Misra

Robotics MSE '20; PhD, ESE '26


Jessica (McWilliams)Weakly

PhD, MEAM '24 - University of Pennsylvania MEAM Lecturer


Dr. Cynthia Sung and Sung Robotics

Cynthia Sung

Research Areas

  • Computational Design
  • Origami Robots
  • Soft Robotics