Katia Bertoldi

About

Katia Bertoldi is the William and Ami Kuan Danoff Professor of Applied Mechanics at Harvard University, affiliated with the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. Her primary teaching areas include Materials Science and Mechanical Engineering. Her research focuses on applied mathematics, modeling physical and biological phenomena and systems, applied physics, and materials science, particularly in the context of solid mechanics. She is involved in exploring the physics of squeaks in rubber sneakers, the development of textiles with adjustable aerodynamic properties, and innovative approaches to programming robots using rubber bands. Her work integrates interdisciplinary methods to advance understanding in materials and mechanical engineering, contributing to both theoretical insights and practical applications.

Research topics

• Computer Science
• Materials science
• Physics
• Composite material
• Engineering
• Mathematics
• Mechanical engineering
• Optics
• Nanotechnology
• Structural engineering

Selected publications

• Multistable inflatable origami structures at the metre scale

  Nature · 2021 · 412 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding
  DOI

• Mechanically robust lattices inspired by deep-sea glass sponges

  Nature Materials · 2020 · 320 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding
  DOI

• Octopus Arm-Inspired Tapered Soft Actuators with Suckers for Improved Grasping

  Soft Robotics · 2020 · 317 citations

  Octopuses can employ their tapered arms to catch prey of all shapes and sizes due to their dexterity, flexibility, and gripping power. Intrigued by variability in arm taper angle between different octopus species, we explored the utility of designing soft actuators exhibiting a distinctive conical geometry, compared with more traditional cylindrical forms. We find that these octopus-inspired conical-shaped actuators exhibit a wide range of bending curvatures that can be tuned by simply altering…

  DOI

• Guided transition waves in multistable mechanical metamaterials

  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · 2020 · 263 citations

  Transition fronts, moving through solids and fluids in the form of propagating domain or phase boundaries, have recently been mimicked at the structural level in bistable architectures. What has been limited to simple one-dimensional (1D) examples is here cast into a blueprint for higher dimensions, demonstrated through 2D experiments and described by a continuum mechanical model that draws inspiration from phase transition theory in crystalline solids. Unlike materials, the presented structural…

  DOI

• Self-regulated non-reciprocal motions in single-material microstructures

  Nature · 2022 · 167 citations

  DOI

Recent grants

• DMREF: Biologically Inspired Optimized Materials And Technologies Transformed by Evolutionary Rules (BIOMATTER)

  NSF · $1.6M · 2015–2019

• CAREER: BuckliOrigami: Soft, Active and Foldable Structures Through Instabilities and Large Deformation

  NSF · $400k · 2012–2017

• Collaborative Research: Programming Non-Linear Waves in Compliant Mechanical Metamaterials

  NSF · $414k · 2021–2024

Frequent coauthors

• Vincent Tournat

  Le Mans Université

  69 shared

• Bolei Deng

  Massachusetts Institute of Technology

  40 shared

• Pai Wang

  36 shared

• Johannes T. B. Overvelde

  Institute for Atomic and Molecular Physics

  35 shared

• James C. Weaver

  31 shared

• Antonio Elia Forte

  King's College London

  31 shared

• Sung Hoon Kang

  Johns Hopkins University

  25 shared

• Ahmad Rafsanjani

  University of Southern Denmark

  24 shared

Labs

• Bertoldi GroupPI

Similar researchers at Harvard University

• Federico Capassoh-143
• Michael P. Brennerh-80
• Michael J. Azizh-72