Julia Di

Note: Julia Di will officially join the Mechanical Engineering Department in January 2027.

Julia Di’s research focuses on designing and developing intelligent sensing and perception systems that enable robots to explore environments outside the lab, such as hospitals, underwater, and even outer space. By integrating innovations in design, perception, and learning, Di creates robots that can understand contact, adapt their behavior, and truly interact with the physical world. Her research bridges visual and tactile modalities to uncover how robots can learn representations of the world — both from physics-based simulations and from real-world data — to perform dexterous manipulation and autonomous exploration in uncertain environments. Her interdisciplinary work brings together methods from design theory, electrical engineering, robotics, computer vision, machine learning, and human-robot interaction.

Di received her B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Columbia University and her M.S. and Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University, where she developed optical-based perception and tactile sensing techniques for exploratory robots. Before her Ph.D., she had worked on autonomous self-driving trucking and as a patent consultant for several early-stage aerospace startups. After completing her Ph.D., she joined the Lockheed Martin Advanced Technology Center as a Senior AI/Autonomy Researcher, working on intelligent space robotics. She has been awarded as a 2025 RSS Pioneer, 2024 Future Space Leader, 2024 Amelia Earhart Fellow, 2024 P.E.O. Scholar, and a NASA Space Technology Research Fellowship. Outside of research, she is passionate about backpacking, traveling, and encouraging students to explore.