People Behind the Science Podcast - Stories from Scientists about Science, Life, Research, and Science Careers

Dr. Sarah Bergbreiter is an Associate Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering with a joint appointment in the Institute for Systems Research at the University of Maryland. Spending time with her family is a big part of Sarah’s life outside of work. She has two kids who are two and four years old, and they enjoy swimming, playing with legos, and building things. Sarah also spends her free time swimming and playing water polo. Sarah’s research involves building and conducting experiments with tiny mobile robots that are about the size of ants. They also use the same technologies in their tiny robots to build better sensors and actuators for bigger robots to help improve performance of these robots. She received her B.S.E. degree in electrical engineering from Princeton University and was awarded her M.S. and Ph.D degrees in electrical engineering from the University of California at Berkeley where she focused on microrobotics. Sarah has been the recipient of multiple awards for her outstanding work including the DARPA Young Faculty Award, an NSF CAREER Award, the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, and Sarah gave a TED Talk in 2015. Sarah joins us for an interview to discuss her life and work.