Ani Hsieh

M. Ani Hsieh serves as Deputy Director of the GRASP Laboratory and Associate Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering & Applied Mechanics at the University of Pennsylvania. After earning dual degrees from Swarthmore College - a B.S. in Engineering and B.A. in Economics in 1999, she completed her PhD in Mechanical Engineering from Penn in 2007. Her career path includes positions as Visiting Assistant Professor at Swarthmore College and Associate Professor at Drexel University before returning to Penn. Her groundbreaking research lies at the intersection of robotics, dynamical systems theory, and control, with particular focus on marine robotics and multi-agent systems. She specializes in how robots interact with their environments and leveraging environmental factors as energy reservoirs for robot teams. Her innovative work in environmental monitoring using robot fleets has earned prestigious recognitions including the 2012 Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Award and 2013 National Science Foundation CAREER Award. As GRASP Lab's Deputy Director, she continues to advance the field through research on complex systems, distributed control, and swarm robotics, while maintaining a strong emphasis on experimental validation.