{"id":245,"date":"2025-07-30T15:28:09","date_gmt":"2025-07-30T15:28:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/site.uvm.edu\/interact_lab\/?page_id=245"},"modified":"2025-12-27T16:57:03","modified_gmt":"2025-12-27T16:57:03","slug":"lab-news","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/site.uvm.edu\/interact_lab\/?page_id=245","title":{"rendered":"Lab News"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>2025<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>[Grants] [12\/2025]<\/strong> Dr. Treers and collaborators at Applied Research Associates (ARA) in Randolph, Vermont receive third-round grant funding from Vermont&#8217;s Leahy Institute for Rural Partnerships, for their project titled &#8220;Microbots for Microplastic Removal in Vermont\u2019s Aquatic Ecosystems&#8221;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>[Awards] [12\/2025] <\/strong>Lab member Callie Levitt wins first place at the 2025 UVM CS Fair for her study &#8220;Substrate Detection and Classification for Robotic Excavation&#8221;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>[Press] [11\/2025]<\/strong> The lab&#8217;s up and coming research on robotic microplastic remediation is featured in a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.uvm.edu\/ruralpartnerships\/news\/new-partnerships-lead-new-possibilities\">news article by the Leahy Institute<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>[Awards] [11\/2025] <\/strong>Dr. Treers receives the IEEE Green Mountain Section Faculty of the Year Award<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>[Presentations] [10\/2025] <\/strong>Dr. Treers presents the lab&#8217;s work on burrowing mechanics at the NSF Foundational Research in Robotics (FRR) PI Meeting in Washington, DC. <\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>[Publications] [09\/2025]<\/strong> Review paper on social insect nest construction is published in Insectes Sociaux: <a href=\"https:\/\/links.springernature.com\/f\/a\/krOfL9Ym4D7LfvCh7MJRbg~~\/AABE5hA~\/PMjbrmDQ9SjvkrRX9vgxuBws1l6neG_i5j1nYiAFhxyqNHAMCTcnkplvQ_KABxo_4n3r4gZjSy5W26iau7DbSImb3uBLWk24TuvnPky8SCOiXaRV-vVnrpklqCWyGLGWg-UV09CF1me8iT1gqW4rO052QKc3cAFskY-Nqy-mf5BmDA4IasLkB5MDWcJbvp1-uLivq1Zx2lom9C1qdWDXpYEdUD1hE4uyHWGHOgLrNuGcB7Mml_2ibbO3BskuPU8PTs2V2Eddu1eAUn30Z7T8EyITSRLCAyREbxuRhOZAggqz4_Nd310rcl-PdcZPN9xt\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/links.springernature.com\/f\/a\/krOfL9Ym4D7LfvCh7MJRbg~~\/AABE5hA~\/PMjbrmDQ9SjvkrRX9vgxuBws1l6neG_i5j1nYiAFhxyqNHAMCTcnkplvQ_KABxo_4n3r4gZjSy5W26iau7DbSImb3uBLWk24TuvnPky8SCOiXaRV-vVnrpklqCWyGLGWg-UV09CF1me8iT1gqW4rO052QKc3cAFskY-Nqy-mf5BmDA4IasLkB5MDWcJbvp1-uLivq1Zx2lom9C1qdWDXpYEdUD1hE4uyHWGHOgLrNuGcB7Mml_2ibbO3BskuPU8PTs2V2Eddu1eAUn30Z7T8EyITSRLCAyREbxuRhOZAggqz4_Nd310rcl-PdcZPN9xt\">Architecture of the insect society: comparative analysis of collective construction and social function of nests<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>[Publications] [07\/2025]<\/strong> Work on robotic manipulation of geometrically cohesive granular media is submitted and published in an Arxiv pre-print: <em><a href=\"https:\/\/arxiv.org\/abs\/2507.19999\">Robot Excavation and Manipulation of Geometrically Cohesive Granular Media<\/a><\/em><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>[Presentations] [06\/2025]<\/strong> Dr. Treers is invited to present her research for the University Research Lecture Series at NUWC Newport, titled &#8220;Locomotion in a Messy World: The Power of Simple Models in Complex Environments.&#8221;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>[Workshops] [05\/2025] <\/strong>Dr. Treers is a co-organizer and panelist for a workshop at the International Conference on Robotics &amp; Automation (ICRA) 2025 on mechanical intelligence, titled <em>Towards Agility and Robustness: Mechanical Intelligence in&nbsp;Robotics, Biology, and Smart Materials<\/em> <a href=\"https:\/\/sites.google.com\/view\/mechanicalintelligence-icra25\/\">https:\/\/sites.google.com\/view\/mechanicalintelligence-icra25\/<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>[Grants] [05\/2025] <\/strong>Dr. Treers and collaborators at Applied Research Associates (ARA) in Randolph, Vermont receive a Capacity Grant from Vermont&#8217;s Leahy Institute for Rural Partnerships to study <em>Microbots for Environmental Remediation<\/em><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>[Grants] [04\/2025] <\/strong>Dr. Treers receives a NASA EPSCoR small-scale research grant from the Vermont Space Grant Consortium (VTSGC) to study <em>Rapid Terrain Characterization for Mobile Robots Using Resistive Force Theory<\/em>.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>[Grants] [04\/2025] <\/strong>Dr. Treers receives an NSF Engineering Research Initiation Award to work on <em>Advancing Subterranean Navigation by Legged Robots<\/em> through Foundational Research in Robotics (FRR) <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nsf.gov\/awardsearch\/showAward?AWD_ID=2501934\">https:\/\/www.nsf.gov\/awardsearch\/showAward?AWD_ID=2501934<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>[Fellowships] [03\/2025] <\/strong>Lab member Adam Boyle is selected for the CEMS Research Experiences for Undergraduates Award to conduct research in the lab during summer 2025.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>[Events] [03\/2025] <\/strong>Dr. Treers gives an opening speech for the first-ever FIRST Robotics Competition Event in the state of Vermont, in Patrick Gymnasium on UVM campus. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.uvm.edu\/cems\/first-robotics-uvm\">https:\/\/www.uvm.edu\/cems\/first-robotics-uvm<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>[Fellowships] [02\/2025] <\/strong>Dr. Treers is selected for the Office of Naval Research (ONR) Summer Faculty Fellowship Program to conduct biologically-inspired design research at the Naval Undersea Warfare Center (NUWC) Division Newport during summer 2025. <\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>[Presentations] [01\/2025] <\/strong>Dr. Treers presents her work on collective behavior and workload distribution in fire ants at the Society for Integrative Biology (SICB) Annual Meeting in Atlanta, Georgia: <em>The onset of laziness: intrinsic motivation and local cues interact to mitigate traffic in fire ants<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\" \/>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>2024<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>[Grants] [11\/2024]<\/strong> The lab receives a UVM OVPR EXPRESS Grant for work on&nbsp;<em>Granular Fluidization Bed Construction<\/em>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\" \/>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>2025 2024<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10000,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-245","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"featured_image_src":null,"featured_image_src_square":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/site.uvm.edu\/interact_lab\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/245","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/site.uvm.edu\/interact_lab\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/site.uvm.edu\/interact_lab\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.uvm.edu\/interact_lab\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10000"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.uvm.edu\/interact_lab\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=245"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/site.uvm.edu\/interact_lab\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/245\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":279,"href":"https:\/\/site.uvm.edu\/interact_lab\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/245\/revisions\/279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/site.uvm.edu\/interact_lab\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}