Josie Hughes

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Josie Hughes
Born1992
CitizenshipBritish
Alma materUniversity of Cambridge
AwardsIEEE Robotics and Automation Society’s Early Academic Career Award, MassRobotics Rising Star Award
Scientific career
FieldsRobotics, Artificial Intelligence
InstitutionsEcole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne

Josie Hughes is a British roboticist and a tenure-track assistant professor at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne {EPFL) in Switzerland.[1] She leads EPFL’s Computational Robot Design & Fabrication Laboratory (CREATE Lab) and is known for her work in soft robotics, robotic manipulation, and the use of artificial intelligence and Large language models (LLM).[2] to create novel robotic systems.[3] She has been the first to use an LLM to help designing a robot, a drastic change in robot design methodologies. She co-founded a company commercializing the first soft robot[4]. In 2024, Hughes received both the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society’s Early Academic Career Award[5] and the MassRobotics Rising Star Award[6] in recognition of her contributions to soft robot design and embodied intelligence.[7] She has an H index of 26.

In 2025 she received CHF 1 million in funding[8] to continue her work with the Advanced Research + Invention Agency’s Robot Dexterity program.

Early life and education

Hughes grew up in southern England and developed an interest in robotics at a young age, even participating in school-age robot competitions with her twin brother.[7] She attended the University of Cambridge, where she completed her undergraduate studies and went on to earn a Ph.D. in engineering[9]. Her doctoral research, carried out in Cambridge’s Department of Engineering, focused on adaptive tactile sensing and embodied mechanical design for robotics – developing robots that leverage their physical structure and sensory feedback for advanced capabilities[10]. She conducted this research under the supervision of Professor Fumiya Iida and Dr. Robert Harle, with a thesis titled “Bio-inspired soft robotic systems: Exploiting environmental interactions using embodied mechanics and sensory coordination”[10]. During her Ph.D. studies, Hughes also actively competed in academic robotics challenges; for example, in 2018 she led a team that won the manipulation division of the RoboSoft Competition with their CambridgeARM[11].

Academic and professional career

Hughes pursued postdoctoral research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). As a Post-Doctoral Research Associate in MIT’s Distributed Robotics Lab, she worked on computational design methods, wearable robotic technologies, and soft robotics[12]. At MIT, she helped develop assistive robotic devices – notably a robotic arm capable of gently brushing a disabled patient’s hair[13]. In 2021, Hughes joined EPFL in Switzerland as a tenure-track assistant professor at the School of Engineering, notably becoming one of the youngest researchers to attain that position at EPFL at age 29 [7]. At EPFL she founded the Computational Robot Design & Fabrication Lab (CREATE Lab) and continued to expand her research in robotic manipulation and design.

Research areas and contributions

Hughes’s research centers on robotics with an emphasis on soft robotics, sensorized mechanisms, and computational approaches to robot design. She has made key contributions to the design and fabrication of soft robots that exhibit novel functionalities and forms of distributed (embodied) intelligence[5]. One prominent example from her early career is an anthropomorphic robotic hand she developed that can play simple piano melodies by moving its wrist; this 3D-printed soft skeleton hand demonstrated how clever mechanical design can achieve complex, human-like movements with minimal control input. The work, published in Science Robotics in 2018, illustrated the principles of morphological computation by exploiting passive dynamics to replicate aspects of a human hand’s versatility[14]

Hughes’s was part of the Cambridge team that created the “Vegebot,” a robot harvester for iceberg lettuce that uses computer vision and machine learning to identify ripe lettuce and cut it without damage[15]. The Vegebot was field-tested successfully and highlighted how robotics can tackle delicate harvesting tasks that traditionally resisted automation. At EPFL, Hughes continues to explore robotics for food and agriculture; for instance, her lab developed a soft silicone raspberry prototype to train picking robots to grasp fruit gently[16][17], and demonstrated a tomato-harvesting gripper co-designed by a large language model (ChatGPT) to explore AI-driven robot design[18]. Across these projects, Hughes integrates data-driven design methods, new soft materials, and bio-inspired principles to enable robots to interact with complex environments in human-like or environmentally adaptive ways. Her work has been featured in leading scientific journals such as Science Robotics[19], Nature Machine Intelligence[20], and Soft Robotics[21], reflecting its impact on the robotics research community.

Selected publications

  • Hughes, J. A. E., Maiolino, P., & Iida, F. (2018). An anthropomorphic soft skeleton hand exploiting conditional models for piano playing. Science Robotics, 3(25), eaau3098. – Demonstrated a piano-playing soft robotic hand using passive mechanical design to achieve complex movements.
  • Birrell, S., Hughes, J., Cai, J. Y., & Iida, F. (2020). A field‐tested robotic harvesting system for iceberg lettuce. Journal of Field Robotics, 37(2), 225-245. – Presented the Vegebot lettuce-harvesting robot, integrating machine vision and cutting mechanisms for agricultural automation.
  • Stella, F., Della Santina, C., & Hughes, J. (2023). How can LLMs transform the robotic design process?. Nature machine intelligence, 5(6), 561-564. – A commentary outlining how large language models (e.g. ChatGPT) can assist and inspire new approaches in robotics design and human–AI co-creation.

References

  1. ↑ "13 new professors appointed at ETH Zurich and EPFL". ETH Board news. 10 July 2020. Retrieved 28 July 2025.
  2. ↑ Stella, Francesco; Della Santina, Cosimo; Hughes, Josie (June 7, 2023). "How can LLMs transform the robotic design process?". Nature Machine Intelligence. 5 (6): 561–564. doi:10.1038/s42256-023-00669-7. ISSN 2522-5839. Retrieved July 30, 2025.
  3. ↑ ""My robots can assist us in our daily lives"". EPFL News. 20 July 2021. Retrieved 28 July 2025.
  4. ↑ "Helix Robotics obtains funding to develop the first commercial soft robot". Startupticker. 30 January 2025. Retrieved 30 July 2025.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 "2024 IEEE RAS Award Recipients Announced!". IEEE RAS News. 22 March 2024. Retrieved 28 July 2025.
  6. ↑ "MassRobotics Announces Recipient of 2024 Robotics Medal Recognizing Accomplishments of Women in Robotics". Massrobotics News. 26 September 2024. Retrieved 28 July 2025.
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 "Josie Hughes wins MassRobotics Rising Star Award". EPFL News. 30 September 2024. Retrieved 28 July 2025.
  8. ↑ "Josie Hughes wins CHF 1M grant from ARIA". EPFL News. 2 June 2025. Retrieved 30 July 2025.
  9. ↑ "Josie Hughes". NCCR Robotics website. Retrieved 28 July 2025.
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 Hughes, Josie Anna Eleanor (July 7, 2018). "Bio-inspired soft robotic systems: Exploiting environmental interactions using embodied mechanics and sensory coordination". Cambridge University PhD Thesis. doi:10.17863/CAM.36682. Retrieved July 28, 2025.
  11. ↑ "Cambridge team emerge victorious in international soft robotics competition". University of Cambridge News. 25 July 2018. Retrieved 28 July 2025.
  12. ↑ Rachel, Gordon (1 June 2020). "Giving soft robots feeling". MIT News. Retrieved 28 July 2025.
  13. ↑ Hughes, Josie; Plumb-Reyes, Thomas; Charles, Nicholas; Mahadevan, L.; Rus, Daniela (April 12, 2021). "Detangling hair using feedback-driven robotic brushing". 2021 IEEE 4th International Conference on Soft Robotics (RoboSoft). IEEE. pp. 487–494. doi:10.1109/RoboSoft51838.2021.9479221. ISBN 978-1-7281-7713-7.
  14. ↑ Hughes, J. A. E.; Maiolino, P.; Iida, F. (December 19, 2018). "An anthropomorphic soft skeleton hand exploiting conditional models for piano playing". Science Robotics. 3 (25) eaau3098. doi:10.1126/scirobotics.aau3098. ISSN 2470-9476. Retrieved July 28, 2025.
  15. ↑ Birrell, Simon; Hughes, Josie; Cai, Julia Y.; Iida, Fumiya (2020). "A field-tested robotic harvesting system for iceberg lettuce". Journal of Field Robotics. 37 (2): 225–245. doi:10.1002/rob.21888. ISSN 1556-4959. PMC 7074041.
  16. ↑ Junge, Kai; Hughes, Josie (April 4, 2022). "Soft Sensorized Physical Twin for Harvesting Raspberries" (PDF). 2022 IEEE 5th International Conference on Soft Robotics (RoboSoft). IEEE. pp. 601–606. doi:10.1109/RoboSoft54090.2022.9762135. ISBN 978-1-6654-0828-8. Retrieved July 28, 2025.
  17. ↑ Cairns, Rebecca. "This mechanical engineer is building robots to harvest raspberries". CNN. Retrieved 30 July 2025.
  18. ↑ Stella, Francesco; Della Santina, Cosimo; Hughes, Josie (June 7, 2023). "How can LLMs transform the robotic design process?". Nature Machine Intelligence. 5 (6): 561–564. doi:10.1038/s42256-023-00669-7. ISSN 2522-5839. Retrieved July 28, 2025.
  19. ↑ Obayashi, Nana; Howard, David; Walker, Kyle L.; Jørgensen, Jonas; Gepner, Maks; Sameoto, Dan; Stokes, Adam; Iida, Fumiya; Hughes, Josie (February 26, 2025). "A democratized bimodal model of research for soft robotics: Integrating slow and fast science". Science Robotics. 10 (99) eadr2708. doi:10.1126/scirobotics.adr2708. ISSN 2470-9476. Retrieved July 28, 2025.
  20. ↑ Stella, Francesco; Achkar, Mickaël M.; Della Santina, Cosimo; Hughes, Josie (March 17, 2025). "Synergy-based robotic quadruped leveraging passivity for natural intelligence and behavioural diversity". Nature Machine Intelligence. 7 (3): 386–399. doi:10.1038/s42256-025-00988-x. ISSN 2522-5839.
  21. ↑ Aracri, Simona; Hughes, Josie; Della Santina, Cosimo; Jovanova, Jovana; Hoh, Sam; Garcia Morales, Ditzia Susana; Barcaro, Rosangela; Tan, Yu Jun; Kortman, Vera G.; Sakes, Aimée; Partridge, Alix J.; Cianchetti, Matteo; Laschi, Cecilia; Mazzolai, Barbara; Stokes, Adam A.; Alvarado, Pablo Valdivia; Yeow, Chen Hua; Odetti, Angelo; Lo Gatto, Valentina; Pisacane, Lucio; Caccia, Massimo (December 1, 2024). "Soft Robotics: A Route to Equality, Diversity, and Inclusivity in Robotics". Soft Robotics. 11 (6): 903–910. Bibcode:2024SoftR..11..903A. doi:10.1089/soro.2023.0225. hdl:11382/567733. ISSN 2169-5172. Retrieved July 28, 2025.

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