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Head and shoulders shot of a light-skinned Nishnabe woman with many freckles. She has teal and brown hair in two low braids, purple and teal cat-eye glasses, large beaded rocketship-shaped earrings, and a black henley shirt.

Kat Allen (she/her) is a PhD Candidate at Tufts University.   She holds a SB in Aerospace Engineering with Information Technology (XVI-2) from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a joint MS in Human-Robot Interaction and Mechanical Engineering from Tufts University.

 

Her current research includes human-robot haptic interaction and accessibility. Her recent work includes haptic communication in collaborative tasks and understanding accessibility in making and other creative hands-on tasks. Her work has applications in engineering education (especially co-curricular settings such as makerspaces) and in enabling disabled makers to design or co-design their own assistive technologies. She is advised by Elaine Short (AABL Lab) and Chris Rogers (FETLab of the CEEO) She is advised by Elaine Short (AABL Lab) and Chris Rogers (FETLab of the CEEO)

A 3-armed brachiating robot is viewed from above, with its center 3-fingered hand on the front, partial bar, and its two back 3-fingered grippers on a full bar in the bottom of the image. It is made of brightly-colored PLA suggesting 3D printing, and wires and motors are visible suggesting a prototype.
Two robots are viewed in front of a whiteboard suggesting a laboratory setting. The robot on the right side of the image is powered off, but the robot on the left is on, with its low-fi LED face smiling while it holds a 2 lb handweight out in its 7DoF arm. The robot is about 1.2 m tall.

Kat Allen, Engineer and Maker

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