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About

S.C. Jacobsen is a pioneering robotics engineer whose work at the University of Utah's Center for Engineering Design has fundamentally shaped our understanding of robotic dexterity, tactile sensing, and human-machine interaction. He is best known as a principal architect of the Utah/MIT Dextrous Hand, a landmark achievement in robotics that has garnered over 660 citations and remains a foundational reference in the field of robotic manipulation. This tendon-driven, multi-degree-of-freedom end effector set a new standard for what machines could achieve in mimicking human hand function. Beyond mechanical design, Jacobsen made significant contributions to the sensory systems that give robotic hands meaningful awareness of their environment. His work on proportional force feedback for prosthetics and teleoperation — exploring physiologically compatible touch feedback — bridged engineering and human physiology in innovative ways. His development of full tactile sensing suites, employing capacitance-based sensors with embedded electronics, further advanced dextrous robotic control. Through Sarcos Research Corporation, he extended these principles into applied research robots for artificial intelligence, teleoperation, and entertainment. With a career spanning actuator design, distributed microsystems, and haptic feedback, Jacobsen's cumulative contributions have left an enduring mark on both academic robotics research and real-world robotic applications.