Kris Dorsey, PhD

Kris Dorsey, PhD

Associate Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering; Associate Professor, Physical Therapy, Movement and Rehabilitation Sciences – Northeastern University

2022 Emerging Leader Abie Award Winner 

Dr. Kris Dorsey is an associate professor in the departments of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Physical Therapy, Movement, and Rehabilitation Sciences at Northeastern University. Previously, she was a President’s Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of California, Berkeley and University of California, San Diego, a faculty member in the Picker Engineering Program at Smith College, and an MLK Visiting Associate Professor at the Media Lab at MIT. Kris graduated from Carnegie Mellon University with a Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering and earned her Bachelors of Science in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Olin College.  

Kris leads the Programmable and Reconfigurable Soft Engineered Systems (PARSES) group. Her current research interests include reconfigurable, novel morphology, and active soft sensors and the design of soft sensors for soft robot actuators and wearable medical and rehabilitation devices. Her lab has designed stretchable strain sensors with tailorable sensitivity and that can be actively tuned. A recent project investigating the mechanical properties of origami patterns in soft sensors is supported with an NSF CAREER award. Through her work, she hopes to design sensors that help monitor and give insight into physical rehabilitation strategies.   

Kris has served as a symposium organizer for “From Actuators and Energy Harvesting Storage Systems to Living Machines” symposium at the Materials Research Society 2022 Spring meeting and on several technical program committees for sensors and micro-scale actuators and transducers, including the Hilton Head Workshop 2020 and 2022 technical program committees. Kris is also a board member for the Institute of Physics Multifunctional Materials journal. 

Kris also serves as a director for the Black in Robotics Boston chapter and is an active member in Black in Engineering, a nationwide group for faculty, industry professionals, postdocs, and grad students. She has written over 20 journal and conference publications.