Dr. Abriana Stewart-Height (ECE ’17) named Assistant Professor at University of Illinois Chicago

ECE graduate Dr. Abriana Stewart-Height (’17) has been named Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering at the University of Illinois Chicago. She earned a BS in Electrical Engineering from UMD and a Ph.D. in Electrical and Systems Engineering from the University of Pennsylvania.

Dr. Stewart-Height is the Director of the Bioinspired Robotics and Resilient Intelligence (BR2I) Laboratory, where her research pushing the resiliency and adaptability of robots is demonstrating the future of long-term autonomy. Her lab’s research focuses on autonomous mobile robot teams and the locomotion, mobile manipulation and navigational challenges they encounter in extreme terrestrial environments. Using a combination of dynamical systems theory, control, biology, rehabilitation, and deep learning, she is developing intelligent systems that respond to unexpected occurrences in a range of complex environments.

Ultimately, her research goal is to have robots to team up with humans or other robots to support critical real-world operations in extremely challenging environments. Robots that are able to traverse uneven terrain and adjust to encountered obstacles can successfully be utilized in a variety of applications such as wildfire suppression, forestry, environmental monitoring and remediation, planetary exploration, disaster response, and emergency wilderness medicine.

The Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering gave Stewart-Height “the foundational tools and skills that are needed to become a talented researcher.” She explains further that “UMD ECE allowed me to become the fearless problem-solver and critical thinker I needed to be to conduct quality research on the undergraduate and graduate levels.”

“During my time at UMD, I gained valuable skills through hands-on coursework and applied research opportunities,” says Stewart-Height. “In the final year of my studies, I discovered my passion for robotics research while working in the Advanced Manufacturing Laboratory, led by Dr. Hugh Bruck.”

Prior to joining the University of Illinois Chicago, she was a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Published February 13, 2026