Jamie Paik

Jamie Paik is the Director and Founder of the Reconfigurable Robotics Lab (RRL) at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL). She is also a core member of the Swiss National Centers of Competence in Research (NCCR) Robotics Consortium. Under Paik's leadership, the RRL research uses knowledge in multi-material fabrication and smart material actuation to create unique robotic platforms.

Paik's journey into developing unconventional robots began at Harvard University's Microrobotics Laboratory. Her current research focus is on soft robotics and self-morphing Robogami, a form of robotic origami. These Robogamis are capable of autonomously transforming their planar shape to 2D or 3D by folding in predefined patterns and sequences, mimicking the art of origami. These soft material robots and robogamis are designed to interact with users and their environments through both inherent and active reconfigurations. The applicability of these robots spans across various fields, including medicine, the automobile industry, space, and wearable technology.

Paik's research and technological innovations have been published in prestigious academic journals such as the Soft Robotics Journal and IEEE Transactions in Robotics, Nature, and Science. Alongside her academic pursuits, Paik co-founded a start-up named Foldaway-Haptics. This start-up has significantly contributed to expanding the industrial applications of these robots, a fact that was apparent during the TED conference in 2019. One of the recent achievements is the introduction of the latest robogami as a part of Mercedes's 2020 concept car, Avatar, during the CES 2020 event. Here, the robogamis created reconfigurable and morphing airfoils, demonstrating their potential in real-world applications.