Robots

Farritor joined the faculty of the Department of Mechanical Engineering in 1998. Prior to coming to UNL he worked in the Field and Space Robotics Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Unmanned Vehicle Lab at the C.S. Draper Laboratories. Dr. Farritor has studied at the Kennedy Space Center, Goddard Space Flight Center and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. He is a member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) and the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) and serves on the AIAA Robotics Technical Committee.

Eric Markvicka, a professor of mechanical and materials engineering, is leading a 4-year, $1.2 million NIH-supported project to develop a wearable monitoring device with multiple sensors to detect flare-ups of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and other chronic conditions like asthma and heart disease. The device may someday help everyday people monitor their overall health and attune to early warning signs of illness. Markvicka directs the Smart Materials and Robotics Laboratory, where computer science and material science combine to engineer new materials that mimic biological tissues and create wearable computing, soft robotics and multifunctional materials. He has won several significant awards for his innovative engineering, such as the 2021 NUTech Ventures Emerging Innovator of the Year, the 2024 Edgerton Innovation award, 2024 ASME Rising Star of Mechanical Engineering, and a 2024 NSF CAREER Award. He is also a senior member of the National Academy of Inventors. (Updated June 2025.)

Santosh Pitla is an associate professor of biological systems engineering at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. He is an expert on agricultural robotics and co-founder of the Consortium of Space, Policy, Agriculture, Climate and Extreme Environment, which researches ways to sustainably grow food on space stations, the moon, Mars and other celestial bodies that might eventually sustain legions of the human kind. He earned his bachelor’s of science in mechanical engineering at Osmania University in India; master’s of science in biosystems and agricultural engineering and mechanical engineering at the University of Kentucky; and doctor of philosophy in biosystems and agricultural engineering at the University of Kentucky. (Updated November 2024.)

One of Bing Chen’s primary research focuses has been with educational robotics outreach to kindergarten through sixth-grade students. He has been awarded several National Science Foundation grants since 2006 to introduce more young girls and under-represented minority students to science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields. Chen works with a nonprofit educational outreach group, “Prairie STEM,” that encourages critical thinking and creativity among young children using a mobile robotics platform. Chen has been a professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering with the University of Nebraska-Lincoln since 1968.