Tess Hellebrekers

I’m currently a Senior Researcher at Microsoft Research. Previously, I was a Research Scientist at Meta AI and a Postdoctoral Fellow with Professor Abhinav Gupta. I completed my Ph.D. in 2020 at Carnegie Mellon University, where I worked with Professor Carmel Majidi in the Soft Machines Lab on my dissertation, Hybrid Soft Sensing in Robotic Systems.

My early work focused on soft and stretchable sensing technologies for robotics, including sensing skins for hybrid systems and fully soft robots. I’ve built and deployed sensors using audio, capacitive, resistive, and—most extensively—magnetic modalities.

These days, my interests lie in systems integration and engineering to enable reliable and robust robotic systems. I’m especially motivated by the challenge of helping robots perceive and act in unstructured, everyday environments.