People
Faculty
Vishesh Vikas
Associate Professor
Mechanical Engineering
Email : vvikas@ua.edu
Phone: (205)-348-1607
Graduate Students
Arun Niddish Mahendran
Arun Niddish is from India and graduated with B.Tech (Honors) in Mechanical Engineering from SASTRA University. His current research work is under wireless communication and inertial sensors. He prefers playing outdoor sports rather than indoor gaming and likes to play Football and Table tennis.
Justin Conzola
Justin Conzola is from Raleigh, North Carolina. He completed his undergraduate mechanical engineering work at the University of Alabama in 2022. He is currently enrolled in the PhD program at UA with a concentration in Dynamic Systems and Controls. His research interests include actuation and locomotion of soft robots. In his free time, he enjoys working out and playing disc golf.
Research Publications: ASME JCND-JMR 2023, ASME JMR 2025, ASME IDETC 2025
Robbie Monke
Robbie is from Springfield, Illinois, and completed his bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Alabama. He is now pursuing a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering with a research focus on tensegrity robotics design and modeling. In his free time, he enjoys lap swimming, playing pickleball with friends, and reading.
Juni Fritz
Juni Fritz is from Spokane Washington, and graduated with her Bachelor’s in Mechanical Engineering Technology from Central Washington University. She is currently working towards her MS (Thesis) in Mechanical Engineering specializing in dynamics and control. Research interests include methods of Inverse Kinematics of prismatic-revolute robots, and approximate solutions to non-linear PDE’s. In her free time she enjoys analog photography, playing guitar, and riding motorcycles.
Lab Alumni
Graduate
- Lauren Ervin (PhD, 2025)
PhD dissertation: “Tensegrity and Soft Robots for Mobility and Manipulation in Unstructured Space Environments” - Cole Woods (PhD, 2024)
PhD dissertation: “Bioinspired Tensegrity Mechanisms for Mimicking Musculoskeletal Behavior and Proprioceptive Sensing” - Caitlin Freeman (PhD, 2024)
PhD dissertation: “Design and Data-driven Locomotion Control of Modular Reconfigurable Soft Robots” - Zahra Bassiri (PhD, 2022; main advisor: Dario Martelli)
PhD Dissertation: “Investigating the Effect of Transcutaneous Electrical Stimulation on Enhancing Balance Control during Balance-Demanding Tasks” - Harish Bezawada (PhD, 2022)
PhD dissertation: “Reconstructing Soft Manipulator Shape Modeled as Multi-Segment Pythogorean Hodograph Curves with Visual and Slope Feedback”
- Ryan Manning (MS, 2025)
MS Thesis – “Model-based Filtering of IMU Arrays for GPS-free Navigation and Motion Capture” - Chase Fortin (MS, 2023), Chevron
- Clayton Gotberg (MS, 2021)
MS Thesis – “Synthesis and Analysis of Tensegrity Mechanisms” - Michael Maynard (MS, 2021)
- Miranda Tanouye (MS, 2018), Honeybee Robotics
MS Thesis – “A Kinematic Analysis of a Stacked Planar Compliant Tensegrity Mechanism” - David Leech (MS), University of Alabama
Undergraduate
- Kyle Scott, University of Alabama
- Matthew Grosman, University of Tennessee Health Science
- Joshua Wong
- Chloe Flack, NVIDIA
- Emma Scott, Michelin North America
- Dalton Stacks
- Georgia Patterson
- Tyler Rhodes
- Will Conlin
- Matthew Pilus