Rachel Hoffman-Bice, PhD

I grew up in a small town just outside Pensacola, Florida, earned my B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Florida in 2015, and went on to MIT for a Master’s (2017) and PhD in Mechanical Engineering in the d’Arbeloff Laboratory (2021) with a focus on Robotics and Machine Design. My graduate research focused largely on topics relating to warehouse and factory automation. For my Master’s degree, I designed and modeled an alternative object retrieval system to let e-commerce companies put fulfillment centers in dense urban areas. My PhD research focused on the design of a custom robotic gantry crane and the precision insertion of extremely heavy cable-suspended pegs, a challenging problem due to the unidirectional stiffness of cables.

I have a passion for challenging problems that can be solved through a combination of clever mechanical design and innovative control theory. My primary topics of interest are technology related to women’s health, surgical robotics and warehouse and factory automation.