Academic Jobs - Home of Higher Ed Logo

Rate My Professor Mitra Hartmann

Northwestern University

Ratings & reviews

5.04/23/2026

Helps students build confidence and skills.

Taught by or worked with Mitra?

Add your rating. It takes about 30 seconds.

About Mitra

Mitra Hartmann serves as Chair and Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Professor of Mechanical Engineering, and Professor of Computer Science by courtesy at Northwestern University’s McCormick School of Engineering. She earned a B.S. in Applied and Engineering Physics from Cornell University and a Ph.D. in Integrative Neuroscience from the California Institute of Technology, followed by postdoctoral positions in Computational Neurobiology at Caltech and Bio-Computing at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Her research centers on sensorimotor integration, whole body biomechanics, robots as tools for studying neuroscience, sensory acquisition behaviors, and neuroethology. Directing the Sensory and Neural Engineering (SeNSE) Lab within the Center for Robotics and Biosystems, Hartmann investigates the neurobiology and biomechanics of active sensing behaviors, with a focus on rat whisking and bipedal locomotion. Her team quantifies whisking kinematics and mechanics, constructs robotic whisker arrays, develops bio-inspired computational models, and created the Digital Rat—a 3D simulation of rat head and vibrissal array for tactile exploratory behaviors. She previously served as Director of Graduate Studies for Biomedical Engineering and advises the Northwestern Robotics Club.