NIFTI graduate student Melanie Anderson has been awarded a 2018 National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship (NDSEG). Melanie is a graduate student in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Washington in the lab of Sawyer Fuller. The NDSEG award recognizes “individuals who have demonstrated the ability and special aptitude for advanced training in science and engineering” with an emphasis in “science and engineering disciplines of military importance.”
Melanie works on developing insect sized robots in the Fuller Lab with a goal to “create tiny robots capable of sensing and performing in the world without a human operator” while focusing on odor-based aerial localization. In May of 2018, the Fuller lab succeeded in creating the world’s lightest flying robot and currently working on refining the miniature robots while refining their olfactory sensors for uses such as detecting methane leaks.