Julia Di
Artist & Engineer
Bio
I'm Julia Di, an artist, writer, science communicator, and robotics student.
I'm currently a Ph.D. student in the Biomimetic & Dexterous Manipulation Laboratory at Stanford University, advised by Mark Cutkosky. For my Ph.D. I am improving the interaction capabilities of robots. But my goal in life is to explore the intersection of art with technology, and social good with technology.
You can find my full C.V. pdf here, or my one-page resume pdf here.
Prior to coming to Stanford, I grew up in small-town Maryland about an hour away from D.C. Fun fact — I lived next to a horse farm and I'm allergic to horses. I mostly spent my K-12 years honing my art and writing skills. I also learned to play a traditional Chinese instrument, the guzheng.
In the past I have worked on NASA robots, an X-plane, and satellites; I've also hiked a sulphur volcano and jumped out of a plane. I have been very grateful to receive the 2020 Interact Fellowship, 2019 Threshold Ventures Fellowship, NSF Graduate Fellowhsip (declined), 2018 Brooke Owens Fellowship, and 2017 AIAA 20 Twenties Laureate. I received my B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Columbia University in 2018, where I started the Columbia Space Initiative and was very active on campus as a student leader.
News
The latest news!
- 15 July 2020 | Link here: Interviewed for DiscoverPhDs!
- 12 July 2020 | Link here: Happy to have presented my retrospective on tactile sensing at RSS 2020 Workshop
>> Past
- 29 July 2019 | Link here: Interviewed as a #STEMStory for Geeky Girl Reality!
Publications
Most recent publications on Google Scholar.
‡ indicates equal contribution.
From the Lab Notebook: Observations on Tactile Sensing for Robotic Manipulation
Julia Di
Robotics: Science and Systems (2020)
Rapid Mission Concept Development at the 2019 Caltech Space Challenge: A Small Lander Network Studying the Habitability of Enceladus
Katiyayni Balachandran, Paolo Cappuccio, Julia Di, Kelsey Doerksen, Jared Fuchs, Alessia Gloder, Rebecca Jolitz, Monica Li, Dan Limonchik, Lotfi Massarweh, Atila Meszaros, Daniel Naftalovich, Erica Nathan, Thomas Peev, Marc Rovira-Navarro, Shreya Santra
3rd Symposium on Space Educational Activities.
Spyndra 1.0: An Open-Source Proprioceptive Robot for Studies in Machine Self-Awareness
Ori Kedar, Christie Capper, Yan-Song Chen, Zhaoyang Chen, Julia Di, Yonah Elzora, Lingjian Kong, Yuanxia Lee, Julian Oks, Jorge Orbay, Fabian Stute, Chad Tarpley, Joni Mici, and Hod Lipson
Pre-print.
Projects
A history of what I've done outside of the classroom / my job. Feel free to check out my projects on Instagram: tech projects, and art projects
A movement for marginalized genders in aerospace
An interactive light and sound architectural landscape installation
An Open-Source Proprioceptive Robot for Studies in Machine Self-Awareness
Columbia's first and only student-run hackathon for under-represented students
Started an organization that sends things to space and teaches others
A movement for marginalized genders in aerospace
Columbia's first and only student-run hackathon for under-represented students
Started an organization that sends things to space and teaches others
For patients with critical limb ischemia
An interactive light and sound architectural landscape installation
A novice learns stained glass
Using generative adversarial networks to make art
A collection of 3D-printed art
An Open-Source Proprioceptive Robot for Studies in Machine Self-Awareness
Started an organization that sends things to space and teaches others
For patients with critical limb ischemia
I was Vice President and an Electrical Engineer on this racecar
Using generative adversarial networks to make art
An Open-Source Proprioceptive Robot for Studies in Machine Self-Awareness
A movement for marginalized genders in aerospace
An interactive light and sound architectural landscape installation
A novice learns stained glass
Using generative adversarial networks to make art
An Open-Source Proprioceptive Robot for Studies in Machine Self-Awareness
Columbia's first and only student-run hackathon for under-represented students
A collection of 3D-printed art
Started an organization that sends things to space and teaches others
For patients with critical limb ischemia
I was Vice President and an Electrical Engineer on this racecar
Milestones
It's always good to reflect on one's journey. Here is a timeline of things that were important to me.
-
Stanford March 2023Back at School Full-time
Time to finish my PhD in robot stuff :) -
New York City Summer 2021Started Leave of Absence
Worked in a variety of places! -
Stanford University October 2020Became a PhD Candidate
Adjusting to grad school was rough,
but I officially became a PhD Candidate! -
Stanford University June 2020Graduation
M.S. in Mechanical Engineering
Concentration: Robotics -
AIAA March 2020Women of Aeronautics and Astronautics,
Vice-Chair
Back to doing what I love most:
helping the next generation! -
Black Rock City August 2019Artist
Displayed art at Burning Man! -
Stanford University September 2018Ph.D. Student
Turned down my dream lab
to attend Stanford -
Southeast Asia January 2018Backpacked through southeast Asia
I got a mosquito bite that swelled
to the size of a golf ball -
Columbia University May 2018Graduation (magna cum laude)
B.S. in Electrical Engineering
Minor: Computer Science -
NASA MSFC Summer 2016Research Associate,
Flight Robotics Laboratory
This was my first robotics internship! -
Columbia Space Initiative Sept. 27, 2015Co-Founder, Co-President
Started an organization that defined my college years -
Columbia University Spring 2015Decided to pursue engineering in college
instead of writing and the arts
Site Acknowledgements
Adapted with permission using Martin Saveski's website template, available at this GitHub repo, and with help from Steven V. Miller's blog. The light mode toggler was inspired by Cassidy Williams' website, with core implementation from developerdrive.com.
Things are a bit buggy because I'm not a web developer by trade, so apologies for any browsing issues! All opinions on this site are my own and do not reflect my employer.