Jacqueline Libby Develops Innovative Solutions for Physical Rehabilitation
For Jacqueline Libby, assistant professor of mechanical engineering at Stevens Institute of Technology, the field of robotics has always been about more than advancing the mechanical engineering and robotics research she loves. It’s about caring for people and improving their quality of life.
“My research leverages robotics for physical therapy applications,” she said. “We’re using advanced technology to achieve the fundamental goal of relieving pain and improving quality of life.”
Engineering a path to innovation
Libby’s academic career began at Brown University, where her undergraduate degree in computer science taught her to create code, design 3D graphics, work with data structures and write algorithms. That led her to Carnegie Mellon University for her master’s degree in mechanical engineering.
“I wanted to learn about building the physical robotic system,” she said, “and I was able to conduct master's-level research at the intersection between computer-aided design and medical robotics.”
She stayed on at Carnegie Mellon for her Ph.D., taking a deep dive into robotics and related artificial intelligence disciplines. During her postdoctoral fellowship at New York University’s Tandon School of Engineering, she collaborated with clinicians and mechanical engineers in a medical robotics lab where she discovered her true passion: soft robotics.
Soft robotics for the hard work of healing
Instead of rigid materials, soft robotics uses flexible, muscle-like parts for safer, more natural movements and interactions.
At Stevens, Libby directs the Robotic Systems for Health Lab, where she and her students design soft robotic wearables and stationary devices to support patients recovering from debilitating brain and muscle impairments.
“We develop pneumatic silicone actuators, mechanisms that act like the robot’s muscles,” she explained. “The robot ‘brain’ sits remotely, feeding in air through plastic tubes to automatically inflate and deflate the actuators to make them move.”
These actuators can be incorporated into wearable devices such as a soft exoskeleton — a shell of artificial muscles — worn to help with movement, or a robot that pushes against the human in meaningful ways.
Earlier this year, her work was published in Technology Networks and featured in the journal’s Laboratory of the Future 2025 symposium.
“With rigid robots, we can easily calculate joint angles and positions,” she noted in the article. “But soft robots have infinite degrees of freedom, making modeling and control much more complex… We’re working on fully integrating… soft actuators, biosensors and machine learning — into a seamless rehabilitation system.”
One of Libby’s team’s focuses is hand mobility. “We are building highly customizable gloves that a stroke patient might wear,” she explained, “with fine-grained dexterity that can allow for the recovery of fine motor skills.”
The secret to the success of these tools may be that people can easily use them from the comfort of their own homes, making therapy compliance more accessible and affordable.
“Stroke patients who don’t receive therapy during the first three months post-stroke are at greater risk of lifelong paralysis,” she noted. “Now imagine a stroke patient having a soft exosuit that helps with mobility 12 hours a day at home, while the therapist monitors progress remotely. That convenient yet still intense, targeted rehab could be a game-changer.”
Beyond stroke situations, Libby also envisions these individualized physical therapy applications supporting elderly care, sports injuries, chronic pain and even personal wellness.
“With rigid robots, we can easily calculate joint angles and positions,” Libby noted in the article. “But soft robots have infinite degrees of freedom, making modeling and control much more complex… We’re working on fully integrating… soft actuators, biosensors and machine learning — into a seamless rehabilitation system.”
Education empowers excellence
Teaching is part of Libby’s passion, and she values opportunities to encourage students who are having difficulty.
“In the classroom, I especially love helping the underdogs,” she said, “and reminding them that they have a lot more capabilities than they thought, and they have the power to succeed.”
In Libby’s lab, doctoral, graduate, and undergraduate students work side-by-side on interdisciplinary, hands-on projects. Experienced students teach newcomers, keeping learning collaborative and continuous.
“My lab is one big knowledge-sharing melting pot,” she noted. “My students and I work together to build solutions that are greater than any one of us could achieve alone.”
She is excited about the potential she and her student teams have to make soft robotics a strong player in the world of rehabilitative therapy. As they collaborate and innovate, they’ll continue to pursue the significant potential of soft robotics and physical human-robot interaction to transform the field of rehabilitation and the lives of people who need those therapies.
Learn more about academic programs and research in the Department of Mechanical Engineering:
