Raphael Assistant Zufferey

Raphael Assistant Zufferey is an Associate Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His research interests include autonomous robotics, bio-inspired hybrid design, and the monitoring of aquatic environments. He holds a BSc and MSc from EPFL and a PhD from Imperial College London. Zufferey has contributed to various robotics conferences and journals, including Nature Communications, Science Robotics, and IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters. He is also involved in academic leadership roles, such as associate editor for Robotics and Automation Letters and special issue editor for Frontiers in Robotics and AI.

Raphael Zufferey is a researcher at MIT specializing in multi-modal robotics. His work focuses on the development of aerial-aquatic robots that integrate biological inspiration with advanced engineering. Zufferey's research explores the design and control of flapping-wing microrobots, autonomous perching mechanisms, and multi-environment robotic systems for underwater and aerial sampling. His projects include the creation of hybrid aerial-aquatic drones like MEDUSA and SailMAV, which are used for biodiversity monitoring and acoustic sensing in aquatic environments. He also investigates the use of tensegrity structures for collision-resilient drones and the development of lightweight sensors for high-speed locomotion. His research bridges robotics, biomimetics, and environmental monitoring.