Katherine Poggensee, assistant professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Delaware, has been named John and Patricia Cochran Scholar. 

Poggensee studies how people interact with wearable robotics such as exoskeletons and other assistive devices, which can support rehabilitation after injury, provide mobility assistance for people with motor impairments and enhance athletic performance. The five-year appointment will support her goal of building an interdisciplinary lab around that work.

Poggensee, who joined UD in January 2026, focuses less on designing new devices and more on the behavioral and adaptive side of wearable robotics: how people learn to use these systems and adjust to them over time. While the technology continues to advance, she said the biggest remaining challenge is not the hardware.

“The bottleneck is still the person,” she said. 

Her research explores how users learn to work with robotic devices and how those interactions influence their performance and effectiveness. As she establishes her lab at UD, Poggensee seeks to create a collaborative environment that brings together students from engineering, kinesiology and other disciplines.

"I want to bring all of these skill sets into my lab so that they can learn from each other," she said.

A cross-disciplinary environment was one of the reasons Poggensee chose UD. She said the University's strengths in engineering, biomechanics and rehabilitation research make it an ideal place to pursue work that bridges technology and human movement. She also holds joint appointments in the Department of Biomedical Engineering and the Biomechanics and Movement Science Program.

Poggensee has built her career at the intersection of engineering, movement science and clinical research. She earned bachelor's degrees in movement science and mathematics before pursuing graduate training in mechanical engineering. As a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellow at Erasmus University Medical Center and Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, she worked across both a hospital and a technical university, collaborating with engineers, clinicians and movement scientists.

At UD, those types of collaborations are within easy reach.

"One of the nice things about UD is that it's all in-house. I just have to go down the block to go to STAR Campus," she said.

With the support of the Cochran appointment, that proximity will help her address the human side of wearable robotics and build a lab focused on how technology can better serve the people who use it.

About the John and Patricia Cochran Scholar

The John and Patricia Cochran Scholars endowed fund was established in 2018 to recruit, develop, retain and promote members whose scholarship and service reflect excellence, creativity and a commitment to inclusiveness, and to support their successful academic career advancement. John Cochran is a former chair of UD’s Board of Trustees.

Those selected as Cochran Scholars are outstanding faculty members on an accelerated path for academic distinction through their exceptional scholarship, teaching and service.​​