Zoubeida Ounaies
Distinguished Professor of Mechanical Engineering
Director, LiMC2
The Pennsylvania State University
Keynote Title: From Responsive Matter to Living Systems: Reimagining Multifunctional Materials
Biography: Zoubeida Ounaies is Distinguished Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at Pennsylvania State University. She earned her B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees from Penn State. Her research focuses on responsive polymer systems and multifunctional composites with coupled electrical, magnetic, and mechanical behavior, including electroactive polymers, magnetoactive elastomers, additive manufacturing of adaptive materials, and bioinspired living material systems. Ounaies is the founder and Director of the Convergence Center for Living Multifunctional Material Systems (LiMC²), an interdisciplinary center advancing adaptive and bioinspired materials research through collaborations spanning engineering, science, medicine, and international partnerships. Prior to joining Penn State in 2011, she held faculty positions at Texas A&M University and Virginia Commonwealth University, and research appointments at NASA Langley Research Center.
At Penn State, she has served as Acting Director and Associate Director of the Materials Research Institute and as Associate Department Head for Administration in Mechanical Engineering. Ounaies is a Fellow of American Society of Mechanical Engineers and SPIE. Her honors include the 2026 ASME Adaptive Structures and Material Systems Award, the Penn State Outstanding International Research Award, the ASME Adaptive Structures Best Paper Award, and the National Science Foundation CAREER Award. She has advised more than 40 graduate students and postdoctoral scholars, authored nearly 200 technical publications, and holds 13 patents.
Dr. Todd C. Henry
Lead, Reconfigurable Structures Team
Army Research Laboratory
Keynote Title: Small Unmanned Aerial System Morphology and Control
Biography: Dr. Todd C. Henry graduated from The Pennsylvania State University in 2010, 2012, and 2014 with a Bachelor's, Masters, and PhD in Aerospace Engineering. After graduating Dr. Henry joined the DEVCOM Army Research Laboratory where he currently leads the Reconfigurable Structures Team in the Expeditionary Aviation Transition Branch of the Weapons Sciences Division. At ARL he has primarily work in Aerospace Structures first for Army rotorcraft and more recently for Army small unmanned aerial systems. Dr. Henry has published 40 peer reviewed journal papers and 18 conference papers in the areas of Aerospace Materials and Structures.
Rebecca Kramer-Bottiglio
Professor, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
Princeton University
Keynote Title: Multifunctional Material Robots That Adapt to Changing Tasks and Environments
Biography: Rebecca Kramer-Bottiglio is a Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Princeton University and a core member of Princeton Robotics. Before joining Princeton, she was a tenured faculty member at Yale University and previously held a faculty position at Purdue University. She has received multiple early-career awards, including the NSF CAREER Award, NASA Early Career Award, AFOSR Young Investigator Award, and ONR Young Investigator Award. She was named to the Forbes "30 Under 30" list for her work on liquid metal-based stretchable electronics and received the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), the highest honor bestowed by the U.S. government on outstanding scientists and engineers beginning their independent careers, for her development of robotic skins that turn inanimate objects into multifunctional robots. She received the Alan T. Waterman Award, NSF’s highest honor for early-career scientists and engineers, “for groundbreaking contributions to robotics, particularly in advancing the understanding of how to design and build machines that evolve on demand.” She was named a National Academy of Engineering (NAE) Gilbreth Lecturer in 2022 and a National Academy of Sciences (NAS) Kavli Fellow in 2023. She also previously served on the Technology, Innovation & Engineering Committee of the NASA Advisory Council.