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About

Caitlin Freeman is a rising leader in soft robotics, whose work reimagines how robots move, adapt, and reconfigure in unstructured environments. Her research centers on the design, modeling, and control of terrestrial soft robots, with a particular focus on reconfigurable modular systems and multi-gait locomotion. Freeman’s most cited work, “Topology and Morphology Design of Spherically Reconfigurable Homogeneous Modular Soft Robots” (2022, 15 citations), introduces a paradigm-shifting concept: a swarm of soft robots that can explore terrain as individual units before rolling into a spherical ball to traverse variable landscapes—a dimensional change that fundamentally alters locomotion dynamics. Her “Shape-centric Modeling for Soft Robot Inchworm Locomotion” (2021, 10 citations) bridges the gap between soft robot design and dynamic behavior, while her “Environment-Centric Learning Approach for Gait Synthesis in Terrestrial Soft Robots” (2025) pioneers a data-driven, fault-tolerant framework for gait generation. Freeman also developed TerreSoRo, a tendon-actuated soft robot capable of multi-gait locomotion. Her work is foundational for creating resilient, adaptive robots that can navigate disaster zones, explore extraterrestrial surfaces, or operate in agriculture—making her a key figure in the next generation of intelligent, soft-bodied machines.