Research Group

I am an Assistant Professor at the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department at the University of Michigan. My research interests lie in the field of deployable, reconfigurable, and adaptable structures. Folding and adaptable structures based on the principles of origami can have practical applications ranging in scale and discipline from biomedical robotics to deployable architecture. I am interested in exploring the fundamental mechanics of these thin sheet systems and creating analytical tools that can simulate mechanical and multi-physical phenomena in such structures. 

More detailed information on my research, publications, and teaching.

My brief biographical information is below, and a CV is available here.

Zhongyuan received a Bachelor’s degree (with top honors) in Civil Engineering from Tsinghua University, China. His graduate research is focused on exploring the local behaviors of thin-walled cellular origami structures. The work is studying how the self-restricting nature of thin sheets can be harnessed to create reconfiguring structures with unique physical properties.

Maria Redoutey is a PhD Candidate in Civil Engineering. She graduated with her Bachelor’s in Civil Engineering from the University of Michigan in 2018. Maria’s research focuses on the creation of computational models and optimization tools for the design of origami structures with safe, stable, and efficient deployment paths. One objective of these tools is to convert complex but practical origami geometries into continuous equilibrium structures, which can reconfigure effortlessly. The tools developed in Maria’s work can be used to translate conceptual designs into real reconfigurable structures for use in fields such as construction, robotics, architecture, and more.

Mira is a Ph. D pre-candidate in the Macromolecular Sciences and Engineering program (Macro) at the University of Michigan. She is co-advised by Prof. Jinsang Kim from Macro and Prof. Evgueni Filipov from CEE. Mira earned her bachelor’s degree in Chemistry from the Lebanese University and a master’s degree of Science in Organic Chemistry from the American University of Beirut (AUB), Lebanon. She is interested in exploring and designing active polymers for the self-folding of origami-inspired assemblages.  Her broader interests encompass functional polymers for various useful applications. 

Hardik earned his M.S.E. in Civil (Structures) Engineering from the University of Michigan and B. Tech. (with honors) in Civil Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, India. His current research is focused on employing the concepts of curved crease origami to generate smooth surfaces with shape morphing capabilities and tunable performance characteristics around the fluid flow.

Kaley graduated Magna Cum Laude with a Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering from the Univeristy of Arkansas (UARK). Her undergraduate studies focused on the low cycle fatigue of 3D printed steel. She graduated with a Master of Science in Civil Engineering from UARK with a research focus on the coupled effects of wind and surge on port structures. Her current research interests at the Univerity of Michigan include woven structures.

Anvay graduated with honors from the University of Iowa with a bachelor’s degrees in Mechanical Engineering and Computer Science. His undergraduate research spanned a range of topics, from gear tribology to space physics instrumentation to industrial robotics to origami metamaterials. Anvay is currently a Ph.D. student co-advised by Prof. Evgueni Filipov and Prof. Talia Moore, working on modeling and developing knitted and woven structures for biomimetic soft robots.

Anan is currently a Ph.D. student in Mechanical Engineering. He graduated with honors from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) with a bachelor’s in Mechanical Engineering. His undergraduate research investigated the mechanics of artificial muscles, origami actuators, and cancer cell mechanotransduction. The focus of his graduate research is on creating multi-scale origami-inspired robots for applications in both medicine and engineering.

Guowei earned his Master’s degree from Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China, and his Bachelor’s degree from Chongqing University, China, both in Mechanical Engineering. His previous research involves soft robots, nonlinear dynamics and control, and metastructures. His current research is focused on developing deployable and tunable acoustic metamaterials by origami/kirigami design.

Jacob graduated with honors from North Carolina State University with a Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering. His current research interests deal with the testing of large-scale origami structures.

Yi has his Ph.D. degree in Civil Engineering and Scientific Computation from the University of Michigan. He also earned his Master’s degree from UC Berkeley and his Bachelor’s degree from Tongji University, China. His research focuses on the fabrication, simulation, and design of functional origami structures. More specifically, he studies the advanced fabrication of micro-origami systems and develops reduced-order simulation frameworks for functional active origami structures.

Steven is a former Ph.D. student from DRSL. Steven graduated from Tufts University with a Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering. His graduate research is focused on modeling the geometry and structural behavior of deployable, curved-fold structures inspired by origami. His long-term goal is to implement analytical methods for this unique flavor of structures in order to gain a greater understanding of their anisotropic and geometry-dependent stiffness properties in the context of large-scale, civil structures. 

Yutong is a former Ph.D. student co-advised by Prof. Filipov and Prof. Wang from Mechanical Engineering at the University of Michigan. Yutong received her Master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Michigan and her Bachelor’s degree from the Dalian University of Technology, China. Her early Ph.D. research focused on the deployment dynamics of origami sheet structures. Her ongoing and proposed work is on the dynamics of fluidic origami structures. Her research interests include origami deployment dynamics, dynamics of bistable/multistable origami structures, and energy absorption and impact mitigation through the multistability characteristics of origami structures.

Bin received his Bachelor’s degree from Shanghai University, China, and now is working on his Ph.D. program about origami in Tsinghua University, China. Meanwhile, he applied for a one-year exchange program at the University of Michigan from Nov 2018 to Nov 2019. His program during visiting focused on verifying rigid-foldability and investigating the deploying geometry of curved origami tubes. This research exploits a new kind of origami tube and can have lots of applications in fluid transfer, robotic engineering, civil engineering, etc.

Ann Sychterz obtained her Ph.D. in 2018 from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL) addressed the novel use of control algorithms, statistical diagnostic tools, and real-time feedback on a full-scale tensegrity structure to enable smooth deployability, damage detection, adaptation, and learning. During her masters of applied science obtained in 2014 at the University of Waterloo, she built full-scale aluminum pedestrian bridges for vibration characterization and control. She completed her bachelor of applied science in civil engineering at the University of Waterloo in 2012. Her current work is focused on addressing the question of making complex adaptive structures (such as tensegrity and origami structures) to be resilient and sustainable.