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About

Ting Tan is a pioneering researcher at the intersection of mechanical metamaterials, origami engineering, and bioinspired robotics. Their work centers on developing reprogrammable, intelligent materials and systems that can adapt their physical properties in real time. Tan’s major contributions include the creation of a reprogrammable mechanical metamaterial that uses origami-inspired functional-group transformations and ring reconfiguration—a breakthrough with 72 citations that enables in situ property changes without external power. They also developed a bistable programmable origami-based soft electricity generator (43 citations) that harvests energy through inter-well modulation, and an avian-inspired biohybrid flapping-wing robot (26 citations) that mimics feathered wing deformations for enhanced maneuverability. Further innovations include a scarab beetle-inspired membranous-wing robot (12 citations) that uses flapping-collision piezo-mechanoreception for lightweight environmental monitoring, and spatially programmable origami networks (2 citations) that enable high-density mechanical computing for autonomous robotics. Tan’s work has garnered over 155 total citations, with recent papers published in top venues like *Nature Communications* and *Advanced Materials*. Their research uniquely combines fundamental mechanics with practical applications in soft robotics, energy harvesting, and autonomous systems, making them a rising leader in adaptive and intelligent matter design.