CISE PhD Student Scholar Award
In an effort to give back to the CISE community, we have established the annual PhD Student Scholar Award. Each CISE-affiliated faculty will have the opportunity to nominate one PhD applicant for this award and a committee will evaluate all nominees based on the student’s merit/strength, potential to conduct cross-disciplinary research, and likeliness to continue PhD work with a CISE-affiliated prospective faculty advisor.
This student scholar award will bestow 3-4 matriculating and/or 1st year PhD students with a one-time endowment of $2,000/each, on top of their fellowship and stipends from their College/Department/Division, to be used towards research-related expenses (e.g., travel to a conference, computer purchases, etc.). Awardees will also act as student hosts for CISE seminars during their first two years, providing them the chance to network with visiting professors and industry professionals.
2027-2028 Awardees will be announced in September 2027.
2026 – 2027 Awardees
Alexa Dumitriu
Advisor: Tommaso Ranzani
Alexa Dumitriu is a first-year PhD student in Mechanical Engineering. Her research interests include soft robot design, locomotion, and control strategies. She received her B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Columbia University, where she worked in the Small Scale Mechanics Laboratory with Prof. Jeffrey Kysar on computational mechanics and design. At Boston University, she joins the Morphable Biorobotics Lab, advised by Prof. Tommaso Ranzani.
Penelope Llibre
Advisor: Andrew Sabelhaus
Penelope is a first-year mechanical engineering PhD student working in the Soft Robotics Control Lab (SRC). Prior to her doctoral studies, she graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Physics from Brandeis University and conducted research under the NSF’s REU program at Boston University. Her current research focuses on extending formal safety constraints on the movement and application of soft robots.
Sungjoon Yoon
Advisors: Venkatesh Saligrama and Ashok Cutkosky
Sungjoon received his B.S. in Mathematical Sciences (with a minor in Computer Science) and an M.S. in Electrical Engineering from KAIST, South Korea. Before joining Boston University, he worked as a researcher at startups in Korea and Santa Monica, CA. His research interests include theoretical machine learning and its applications, with a particular focus on sequential decision-making problems.
Lintao Zheng
Advisor: Emiliano Dall’Anese
Lintao completed his master’s degree in Robotics at GRASP Lab, UPenn. He is currently a PhD student in Systems Engineering (Robotics) at Boston University. His research focuses on enabling robots to operate safely and stably even in extreme environments, accounting for real-world and sensor-detection uncertainties.