Brittany Coats

Papers

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About

Brittany Coats is a pioneering researcher at the intersection of soft robotics, biomedical engineering, and injury mitigation. Her work centers on developing novel robotic systems for medical interventions and protective technologies. Coats’s most notable contribution is the invention of "Screw-Tip Soft Magnetically Steerable Needles" (2023, 11 citations), a paradigm-shifting approach to steerable needles that uses a rotating screw-tip mechanism to pull itself through tissue, eliminating the need for traditional pushing insertion. This innovation promises safer, more precise minimally invasive procedures. In parallel, Coats has made significant strides in traumatic brain injury prevention through her "Optimization of a Soft Robotic Bladder Array for Dissipating High Impact Loads" (2020, 10 citations), where she designed a smart helmet using controllable pneumatic bladders to actively dissipate impact forces. This work addresses a critical public health need in sports and recreation safety. By merging soft robotics with biomechanics, Coats is redefining how we approach both surgical intervention and protective equipment, demonstrating the power of adaptive, compliant systems to solve complex biomedical challenges.