I study the mechanics of functionally graded biological materials, such as whiskers, hair and skin, and rebuild their gradients as robomaterial models for robotics, healthcare and assistive technology.
Most sensors are built from uniform materials, so filtering and encoding happen downstream in electronics and software. Biology builds that work into the material itself. I re-create these graded structures as robomaterial models, fabricated specimens in which the gradient is the experimental variable, to learn when and how each gradient helps a robot or device.
Can we build what biology builds? We map keratin and collagen gradients from the nanoscale up, then re-create them with 3D printing and programmable knitting.
Trunk skin, PNAS 2022 · Collagen, Commun. Biol. 2025 · Hair, preprint 2026
Can one structure both sense contact and store energy? We build gradients into robots and test each one against a uniform control under the same loads.
Graded robot links, ICRA 2025 · Gradient whiskers, RoboSoft 2025
Can graded structures make assistive technology cheaper and more comfortable? We turn them into low-cost devices that work with the body.
Schulz AK*, Kaufmann LV, Smith LT, Philip DS, David H, Lazovic Zinnanti J, Brecht M, Richter G, Kuchenbecker KJ*
Elephants cannot move their whiskers, so the whisker material does the work. Gradients in geometry, porosity and stiffness encode where a touch lands in the amplitude and frequency of the vibration at the base. Follow-up work builds the same gradients into whisker-inspired sensors for robots.
Full list on Google Scholar. * Corresponding author.
As a group leader at MPI-IS, I independently supervise research engineers, master’s and bachelor’s students, and interns, and host visiting doctoral researchers. We work with biologists, zoos and natural history museums on comparative haptics.
Director, Haptic Intelligence Department, MPI-IS
A structure that senses by contact should be taught by contact. Much of my outreach grows out of the research itself and out of building labs and classrooms where neurodivergent people belong.
A peer network I co-founded for neurodivergent researchers and staff across the Max Planck Society: a place to share what works, ask for what you need and find belonging.
An annual day at Zoo Atlanta, started in 2020, where researchers from Georgia Tech, Emory and the zoo share biomechanics with visitors. The format is published so others can run their own.
Read about it at Zoo Atlanta ↗ Read the published format ↗Tactile Accessible Microscopy Printing: an open-source workflow that turns microscopy images into 3D-printed lithographs that blind and low-vision people can read by touch. It works with any FDM printer.
View on GitHub ↗An invited eLife essay on living abroad as a medicated autistic scientist.
Read the article ↗A blog series on medication, masking and academic life.
Read on Medium ↗A student organization I co-founded at Georgia Tech to connect undergraduates with zoo and conservation partners.
Visit Tech4Wildlife ↗
A live interview about our Royal Society Open Science study on how elephants develop their trunk wrinkles.
Featured in The New York Times, NPR, The Washington Post, Scientific American, Spektrum der Wissenschaft, and over 200 other news outlets.
Research featured in the exhibit The Secret World of Elephants.
Featured in Ze Frank’s True Facts: Elephants on YouTube, with 2.6 million views.
Featured in The New York Times, Science Friday, Smithsonian, and over 40 other news outlets.
Featured in Nature, The New York Times, NPR All Things Considered, The Atlantic, Smithsonian Magazine, JEB, and over 70 other news outlets.
Andrew K. Schulz is a Group Leader in the Haptic Intelligence Department at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Stuttgart and an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow. He holds a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from Georgia Tech (2022), where he studied the mechanics of the elephant trunk with David L. Hu.
His work is featured at the American Museum of Natural History and has been covered by The New York Times, NPR and The Washington Post, and he was selected as a 2024 Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting young scientist in physics. As an autistic researcher with ADHD, he builds open, low-cost methods that keep science accessible to everyone.
Collaborations, speaking invitations, prospective students and faculty search questions are all welcome.
aschulz@is.mpg.de