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About

Dr. Won Jun Song is a pioneering researcher at the intersection of soft robotics, bioinspired materials, and micro-scale actuation. His work fundamentally reimagines how robots interact with their environments, moving beyond rigid, power-hungry systems toward compliant, self-powered, and adaptive machines. Song’s most influential contribution is his comprehensive review on hydrogel soft robotics (495 citations), which established the foundational framework for using water-swollen polymer networks to create soft, biocompatible actuators and sensors—a cornerstone reference for the field. He introduced the novel concept of “triboresistive touch sensing,” a grid-free, self-powered touch recognition system based on monolayered ionic power generators, enabling skin-mountable devices without complex electrode arrays. His creativity extends to nature-inspired design, as seen in his work on “ionic spiderwebs” (60 citations), which mimics spider silk’s adhesive and self-cleaning properties. Most recently, Song achieved the first liftoff of a soft-actuated micro-aerial robot powered by triboelectric nanogenerators, and he is advancing all-3D-printed modular microrobots using large-displacement dielectric elastomer microactuators. By merging fundamental materials science with practical robotic systems, Song is shaping the future of soft, autonomous, and environmentally interactive machines.