Biography
Michael Abbott is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Santa Clara University. He holds a B.S. degree in Mechanical Engineering from UC Santa Barbara as well as M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Mechanical Engineering from UC Berkeley.
His research lies at the intersection of mechatronics, haptics, and biomechanics and aims to develop novel assistive technologies to tackle complex problems in healthcare and robotics. Recent projects include the integration of a continuously variable transmission into a body-powered prosthesis and the haptic characterization of cable-driven upper-limb grasp assistance devices. Prior to joining academia, he also worked at Angstrom Designs and Northrop Grumman (Goleta) developing automated ground test equipment for satellites. Outside of the lab and classroom, Michael enjoys playing music in his makeshift studio, practicing Brazilian jiu-jitsu, and exploring Bay Area nature spots.
Education
Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley, Mechanical Engineering, 2024
M.S., University of California, Berkeley, Mechanical Engineering, 2020
B.S., University of California, Santa Barbara, Mechanical Engineering, 2016
Courses Taught
MECH 160: Modern Instrumentation
MECH 194/195: Senior Design Project I/II
Recent Publications
M. E. Abbott and H. S. Stuart, “Characterizing the Force-Motion Tradeoff in Body-Powered Transmission Design,” IEEE Transactions on Neural Systems and Rehabilitation Engineering, vol. 31, pp. 3064–3074, 2023.
A. I. W. McPherson, M. E. Abbott, W. White, Y. Gloumakov, and H. S. Stuart, “A Wearable Testbed for Studying Variable Transmission in Body-Powered Prosthetic Gripping,” in 2023 International Conference on Rehabilitation Robotics (ICORR), pp. 1–6, Sep. 2023.
W. O. Torres, M. E. Abbott, Y. Wang, and H. S. Stuart, “Skin Sensitivity Assessment Using Smartphone Haptic Feedback,” IEEE Open Journal of Engineering in Medicine and Biology, vol. 4, pp. 216–221, 2023.
M. E. Abbott, A. I. W. McPherson, W. O. Torres, K. Adachi, and H. S. Stuart, “Effect of variable transmission on body-powered prosthetic grasping,” in 2022 International Conference on Rehabilitation Robotics (ICORR), pp. 1–6, Jul. 2022.
M. E. Abbott, J. D. Fajardo, H. W. Lim, and H. S. Stuart, “Kinesthetic feedback improves grasp performance in cable-driven prostheses,” in 2021 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), pp. 10551–10557, May 2021.
A. I. W. McPherson, V. V. Patel, P. R. Downey, A. A. Alvi, M. E. Abbott, and H. S. Stuart, “Motor-Augmented Wrist-Driven Orthosis: Flexible Grasp Assistance for People with Spinal Cord Injury,” in 2020 42nd Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine Biology Society (EMBC), pp. 4936–4940, Jul. 2020.
