Rate My Professor Joshua Schultz

Joshua A. Schultz, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering in the College of Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Tulsa, where he has served as Director of the Biological Robotics at Tulsa (BRAT) Research Group since 2013. He earned a BSME from Tufts University in 2002, an MS in Mechanical Engineering from Vanderbilt University in 2004, and a PhD in Mechanical Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 2012. Following his doctorate, he completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia in Genoa, Italy, under Antonio Bicchi. Schultz's research expertise lies in motion systems for robotics and mechatronics, inspired by anatomical and physiological principles to create adaptable, reliable, and resilient robotic systems. His work encompasses robotics for rehabilitation, legged robot locomotion, hyper-redundant muscle-like actuators, soft robots with highly flexible silicone bodies, and robotic hands for grasping and manipulation. He pioneered developments such as the TU Hand, an anthropomorphic robotic hand using compliant connections and multiport network models to enable versatile grasping behaviors with limited actuators, supported by the National Science Foundation's National Robotics Initiative.

Schultz co-authored the book Cellular Actuators: Modularity and Variability in Muscle-Inspired Actuation (Butterworth-Heinemann/Elsevier, 2017) with Jun Ueda and H. Harry Asada. His extensive publication record includes journal articles such as Nested Piezoelectric Cellular Actuators for a Biologically Inspired Camera Positioning Mechanism (IEEE Transactions on Robotics, 2013), A four-tendon robotic finger with tendon transmission inspired by the human extensor mechanism (Bioinspiration & Biomimetics, 2021), and Characterization of Control-Dependent Variable Stiffness Behavior in Discrete Muscle-Like Actuators (Applied Sciences, 2018), along with numerous conference papers presented at IEEE ICRA, IROS, and ICORR. He has received the Achievement Rewards for College Scientists Foundation Scholar award, Best Associate Editor at the International Conference on Robotics and Automation, and the Institute of Physics Outstanding Reviewer Award. As Technical Editor for IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics, Schultz contributes to the field through the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society, serving on editorial boards and organizing committees for conferences and journals. His innovations advance bio-inspired robotics for applications in rehabilitation, search and rescue, and medical assistance.