Reinhard defends his PhD

We are proud to announce that Reinhard has successfully defended his PhD thesis, titled “Towards Open Continuum Robotics,” on April 15, 2025.

The examination committee (Florian Shkurti, Angela Schoellig, Igor Gilitschenski, Helge A Wurdemann) was impressed by the breadth of his contributions — from open datasets for learning kinematics, to open actuation modules enabling torque control in continuum robots, and his fundamental work on the Clarke transform for displacement-actuated systems. This unifying formulation of state representations opens new perspectives for planning and control.

Reinhard is CRL’s sixth PhD graduate, and Jessica couldn’t be a prouder academic parent. Reinhard has been a driving force behind many innovations in the CRL in recent years — especially the Open Continuum Robotics Project — and a generous mentor to many students along the way.

Reinhard is now exploring postdoc opportunities in Europe and we are excited to see how his research will continue to shape the future of robotics. Stay tuned for more updates!

Congratulations once again, Reinhard! We are proud to have you as part of our lab family.