Jason Stauth

PhD students Lukas Song and Kishalay Datta, postdoc Yanqiao Li, and Professor Jason Stauth received a Best Poster Award at this year's IEEE Workshop on Control and Modeling for Power Electronics at the University of Cambridge. The award was for the paper "Analysis and Design of a Piezoelectric Resonator Based 2:1 Hybrid DC-DC Converter," which proposed introducing added inductors and capacitors back into the piezoelectric power converter.

Postdoc researcher Yanqiao Li Th'25, advised by Professor Jason Stauth, presented his startup, uDrive, at The Engine's Blueprint Showcase in Boston—the culmination of a program that helps researchers build "tough tech" startups. Leveraging Li's PhD research at Thayer, uDrive develops technologies for next-generation haptics and compact cooling solutions for mobile devices. Smartphones currently use basic haptics [vibrations] for notifications," Li explained. "High-definition haptics, enabled by new piezoelectric actuators, can do much more—such as allowing you to feel the texture of clothes while shopping online. The widespread adoption of this technology, however, is currently limited by a lack of high-voltage, energy-efficient electronics. Our startup is bridging this gap."

PhD candidate Yanqiao Li, advised by Professor Jason Stauth, received the 2024–25 IEEE Solid State Circuits Society (SSCS) Predoctoral Achievement Award, their highest honor for PhD students, at the IEEE International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC) in San Francisco. The award recognizes Li's research on "miniaturized low-power, high-voltage step-up ratio capacitive load drivers" which enable microrobots to be fully autonomous and energy-efficient for medical, consumer, and industrial automation, as well as for haptics, printing, and ultrasound applications.

PhD students Bahlakoana Mabetha and Yanqiao Li—mentored by Google Research Scientist Hong Tan and advised by Professor Jason Stauth—were awarded $50,000 from the National Science Foundation's Innovation Corps (I-Corps™) National Teams training program. After developing small, efficient integrated circuits, Li and Mabetha formed "uDrive" to commercialize their novel high-voltage low-power drivers for haptics that can solve key challenges in human-machine interactions through the sense of touch. They attended three trade shows and interviewed over 100 industry experts during the eight-week program.