Nana Obayashi

Nana Obayashi is an Assistant Professor in the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department at the Tandon School of Engineering of New York University. She earned her BS and MS in Aerospace Engineering at Georgia Tech and worked in the aerospace and automotive industries contributing to vehicle performance optimization, aerodynamic analysis, and flight/vehicle test support. She earned her PhD in Mechanics at EPFL, where she was advised by Josie Hughes. During her PhD, she visited the University of Cambridge, under the guidance of Fumiya Iida. She is a 2024 Amelia Earhart Fellow and a 2025 RSS Pioneer. Her expertise lies in design optimization of robots that exploit soft body-fluid interactions, a topic that sits at the intersection of robotics and aerospace engineering. Her focus is on developing bio-inspired soft robots that interact with and exploit the fluids to exhibit intelligent behaviors as well as be robust and efficient in the natural environment. These are accomplished through developing novel robotic platforms and leveraging methods like large-scale experimentation, data-driven design, and fluids analysis.

Nana Obayashi is an Assistant Professor at NYU, specializing in soft robotics, aerospace engineering, large-scale experimentation, and fluid-structure interaction. Her research focuses on developing advanced robotic systems that integrate soft materials with dynamic control mechanisms. Obayashi's work includes experimental validation of models for soft underwater robots, optimization of passive swimmers, and the design of compliant robotic fish for diverse environments. She also explores human-robot collaboration and embodied intelligence for improved robotic performance. Her research emphasizes the integration of simulation, experimentation, and real-world application to advance robotic systems for complex tasks.