POSTDOCTORAL RESEARCHER · TU DELFT
Giving robots a sense of physical interaction.
I develop tactile sensors and compliant robotic systems that use contact to understand objects and guide manipulation.
RESEARCH DIRECTION
Sensing, body, and action.
How can a robot’s physical design and distributed sensors help it interact with unfamiliar objects and environments?
Tactile & distributed sensing
Embedding sensors into robotic surfaces to extract information about contact, deformation, and the objects a robot touches.
Soft & compliant robotics
Designing actuators, fingers, and grippers whose mechanics support adaptable interaction with their surroundings.
Contact-rich manipulation
Combining sensing, mechanical design, and learning to grasp delicate objects and perform tasks involving sustained contact.
SELECTED PROJECTS
Research made tangible.
TacLight: sensing touch through light
A soft, camera-free optical sensor that measures six-axis forces and moments for physical and virtual interaction.
Sensing through suction
Octopus-inspired suction cups integrate strain sensing to obtain information about objects during contact and grasping.
Compliance meets learning
Combining soft and rigid robotics with imitation learning to investigate how physical compliance supports contact-rich tasks.
A softer approach to harvesting
BerryTwist explores a twisting-tube soft gripper for handling and harvesting blackberries.
PUBLICATIONS
Selected contributions.
2026 · Nature Machine Intelligence
Peripheral control enabled by distributed sensing in an octopus-inspired soft robotic arm for autonomous underwater grasping
E. Del Dottore, R. Adhami, E. Shahabi, et al.
2026 · Research Square preprint
TacLight: A Six-Axis Soft Optical Tactile Sensor for Physical and Virtual Interaction
E. Shahabi, Z. Li, S. S. Baberwal, A. van der Kraan, V. Munoz, S. Coyle, J. Kober, and C. Della Santina
2024 · IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters
BerryTwist: a Twisting-Tube Soft Robotic Gripper for Blackberry Harvesting
J. F. Elfferich, E. Shahabi, C. Della Santina, and D. Dodou
2023 · Advanced Intelligent Systems
Octopus-Inspired Suction Cups with Embedded Strain Sensors for Object Recognition
E. Shahabi, F. Visentin, A. Mondini, and B. Mazzolai
ABOUT
From mechanical design to sensing robots.
I am a postdoctoral researcher at TU Delft, working on soft robotic systems, embedded intelligence, and sensing.
My research connects sensor development, robot morphology, and experimental validation. I am interested in how robots can use information from physical interaction to support perception and manipulation.
A practical foundation
Before my doctoral research, I spent seven years in industry and two years as a researcher at the National Taiwan University of Science and Technology. This experience continues to shape my approach to building and testing robotic systems.
My doctoral research at Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna and IIT focused on bioinspired soft robotics.
Academic service
Co-organizer, 2nd Unconventional Robotics Symposium, TU Delft, 14–15 September 2026.
Guest Editor, Robotics (MDPI), special issue “Soft Robotic Actuation and Locomotion: The State of the Art.”
CONTACT
Let’s discuss sensing and robotic interaction.
For research collaborations, scientific exchange, and academic enquiries.
