Dr. Melanie Anderson

Melanie Anderson received her doctorate in Mechanical Engineering in 2021 at the University of Washington. She also has a Masters in Mechanical Engineering and a Bachelors in Electrical Engineering from the University of Washington.

Her graduate research focused on combining live biological sensors, the moth antenna, with a robotic platform, a palm-sized quadrotor drone, to create a robot which can detect and autonomously navigate towards a chemical source using a bio-inspired algorithm. She has received the National Defence Science and Engineering Fellowship and the UW Mechanical Engineering Distinguished Dissertation Award. Following her graduate work, she founded a startup, Anderson Biohybrid Systems LLC, which spins off her research.

Funding through the UW CoMotion Postdoctoral Entrepreneurship Program and through the Washington Research Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship has allowed her to continue furthering her research in the Riffell Lab at the University of Washington. Currently, she is researching improvements to the lifespan, selectivity, and sensitivity of the biohybrid chemical sensor, and investigating chemical search algorithms which are robust to changes in wind or obstacles.