Home | Holly Golecki, PhD

We work at the interface of humans and materials in medical devices and educational tools. Our interests include:

Application of biomaterials in robotic systems
Medical device design
Engineering education

News

04/2025 The SIIP & Share Podcast has launched! Golecki is part of a team of faculty, staff, and students who created a podcast to disseminate the education innovations in the Grainger College of Engineering at UIUC.

Check it out on Apple Podcasts and Spotify!

10/2024 Golecki attends NSF LSAMP PI/PD Meeting with SCI-LSAMP project co-PIs in Washington, DC.

10/2024 Natalie Taylor presents at the BMES Annual Conference

10/2024 Jump Arches Team presents at the Health Care Engineering Systems Conference!

10/2024 Dr. Golecki is a mentor for the new UIUC First Gen Scholars Research Program.

10/2024 New funding: Golecki joins the co-PI team for the Southern and Central Illinois Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation (SCI-LSAMP) project. U of I leads new NSF-funded alliance to increase opportunities for minority students in STEM.

6/2024 New funding: "Development of an active wheelchair seat cushion to address pressure ulcers" a collaborative UIUC-OSF partnership funded by Jump Arches Program.

6/2024 New paper in Soft Robotics: Educational Soft Underwater Robot with an Electromagnetic Actuation by R. Hennig, A. Beaudette, H. Golecki, C. Walsh, https://doi.org/10.1089/soro.2021.0181

6-2024 - Golecki Group members co-authored papers on a range of education topics at ASEE National Meeting in Portland, OR this year. Check out papers we contributed to this year below:

Golecki, H. M., & Jensen, K., & Klebbe, K. T., & Tran, T., & McNeela, E. A. (2024, June), Board 332: Measuring the Impact of a Soft Robotics Curriculum Embedded in Physics Classes on Students' Engineering Knowledge, Identity, and Career Interest Paper presented at 2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Portland, Oregon. 10.18260/1-2--46913

Golecki, H. M., & Chung, N. Y., & Tran, T., & Liang, P. (2024, June), Improving Outreach Interactivity in the Virtual Environment – Evaluation of A Computer Vision Controlled Soft Robotic Hand to Broaden Participation in Bioengineering Paper presented at 2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Portland, Oregon. 10.18260/1-2--47592

Bethke, E., & Ansari, A., & Bradley, J., & Amos, J. R., & Golecki, H. M. (2024, June), An Adaptive Scaffolding Approach Based on Team Dynamics in an Integrated Masters and Undergraduate Bioengineering Capstone Design Course Paper presented at 2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Portland, Oregon. 10.18260/1-2--46542

Bethke, E., & Ansari, A., & Amos, J. R., & Bradley, J., & Ochia, R., & Golecki, H. M. (2024, June), Bridging Extracurricular Skill Needs in Bioengineering Capstone Design with Just-in-Time Workshops Paper presented at 2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Portland, Oregon. 10.18260/1-2--48410

Reck, R. M., & TerBush, J. R., & Cvetkovic, C., & Golecki, H. M., & Schmitz, C. D., & Ansell, K., & Mussulman, D., & Radhakrishnan, C., & James, I. H. (2024, June), Getting Started Teaching an Undergraduate Engineering Laboratory Paper presented at 2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Portland, Oregon. 10.18260/1-2--47496

Golecki with collaborator, Karen Klebbe, presenting their poster on soft robotics lessons for high school students.

5-2024 - Golecki co-organized a workshop with Dr. Laura Gaviria (UTSA) at the 2024 BME Summit. The workshop entitled, "Industry Preparation through Capstone Panel Discussion" welcomed industry panelists John Shea, Robert Kallen, and John Crombie for the discussion.

5-2024 - Congratulations to former Golecki Group undergraduate researchers, Omolola Okesanjo and Cornell Horne on their graduate from ECE! Omolola and Cornell are continuing on to graduate school at Carnegie Mellon University and UIUC! I-L-L!

5-2024 - Congratulations to lab members, Isaiah Rigo and Jason Robinson for winning an Innovate & Iterate Prototyping Microgrant during the 2024 Cozad New Venture Challenge for our soft robotics enabled concept for pressure sore relief. Congrats Isaiah and Jason!

5-2024 - Congratulations to Lucy Cinnamon and Daniella Chapman on their Outstanding Presentation award at the university wide Undergraduate Research Symposium. Lucy and Daniella were awarded for their presentation, "Fostering Future Innovators: A Pedagogical Approach to Introduce Engineering Design and Robotics in Early Science Education". In more exciting news, our paper on this work with Conor Walsh's Harvard Biodesign Lab is accepted for publication at Science Scope!

5-2024 - New papers describe experiential learning elective courses available in UIUC BIOE.

Golecki, H.M., Robinson, J., Cvetkovic, C. et al. Empowering Students in Medical Device Design: An Interdisciplinary Soft Robotics Course. Biomed Eng Education 4, 399–408 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s43683-024-00143-9

Cvetkovic, C., Lindley, S., Golecki, H. et al. Biofabrication of Neural Organoids: An Experiential Learning Approach for Instructional Laboratories. Biomed Eng Education 4, 409–419 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s43683-024-00145-7

4/2024 - Congratulations to graduating seniors Mayura Kulkarni, Anthony Cruz Macedo, Natalie Taylor and juniors Lucy Cinnamon and Daniella Chapman-Rienstra on their presentations at the campus-wide UIUC Undergraduate Research Symposium!

4/2024 - Golecki presented a talk at the Rehab Engineering session at the Design of Medical Devices conference in Minneapolis, MN.

6/2023 - We presented the curriculum from our NSF RIEF project to Baltimore area science teachers at an ASEE Pre College Engineering Education workshop entitled, "Designing Squishy Robots to Teach Engineering, Physics, and Chemistry” at the Towson University Center for STEM Excellence in Baltimore, MD.

6/2023 - Congratulations from David Medina on his presentation of our paper "Pre-College Robotics: Best Practices for Adapting Research to Outreach" at the ASEE National Conference in Baltimore, MD. Awesome to see the Block I shining on the #ASEELivingWall! Way to go, David!

4/2023 - Congratulations to Clare Booth Luce scholar, Charmaine Nieves, and ISUR scholar, Jaylynn Kim on their poster presentations at the 2023 ISUR Expo!

4/2023 - Congratulations to Tyler, Arsh, Jackie, and Jorge on their poster at the UIUC Undergraduate Research Symposium

12/2022 - Thanks to Lucy Brizzolara for designing us a new group logo! And thanks to Jaylynn and Katelyn for printing stickers for the group! How fun!

11/2022 - Congratulations to Jorge Jimenez and his Sandia grad mentor, Georgia Kauffman, on their Honorable Mention ribbon for their poster at the annual MRS Meeting in Boston, MA!

11/2022 - NSF EFRI REM Scholars from UIUC head to Boston for the 2022 Materials Research Society meeting to present posters with Harvard and Bunker Hill Community College Scholars. Obligatory stop at the UIUC "I" in O'Hare!

11/2022 - Fall 2022 Golecki Group photo!

11/15/2022 - First snow fall of the season on campus!

10/2022 - Congratulations to Jason and Thomas on their presentations at the BMES Annual Meeting in San Antonio, TX!

9/2022 - NSF EFRI REM Scholars had the opportunity to visit the Kim Lab @ UIUC to discuss all things robotics!

8/2022 - Congratulations to 2022-2023 Clare Booth Luce scholars, Charmaine Nieves and Maya Grant!

7/2022 - Thanks to summer researchers, Jason Robinson and Thomas Tran, for hosting high school campers interested in bioengineering in the lab today for some hands on soft robotics activities!

5/2022 - Congratulations to all of the group members that presented their work on campus this month!

4/2022 - Congratulations to Hannah and Drashti for presenting their work at the Design of Medical Devices Conference!

10/2021 - Jorge Jimenez presented a poster from his research at Sandia National Labs at the UIUC-Sandia Collaborative Conference.

10/2021 - NSF EFRI REM and UIUC IDEA GIANT Undergraduate Researchers share about soft robotics at the Fall Research Fair

10/2021 - Phil and Thomas present a virtual outreach activity in a poster session & Dr. Golecki poses with UIUC BMES Student chapter at BMES Annual Meeting in Orlando, FL!

9/2021 - Holly presented a poster from the group's NSF RIEF project at the NSF EEC Conference.

9/2021 - Congrats to Maya and Ilalee for their first place prize in the TechSAge Hello Robot Pitch Competition!

9/2021 - Golecki Group Lab Photo

7/2021 - Great work this summer, Adia and Alyssa! Congratulations on a successful summer internship with our collaborator, Dr Bryan Kaehr at Sandia National Labs!

6/2021 - Congratulations to Adia Radecka Jakubczak, selected as a 2021 DaRin Butz Foundation Research Scholar.

5/2021 - Another successful BIOE435/6 Senior Capstone course wraps up. The teams really persevered this year! Their work is highlighted by iSTEM here.

4/2021 - Sara presented on the group's GIANT funded project: Building Confidence and Increasing Engagement through Undergraduate Research this week at the IDEA Institute.

4/2021 - Alyssa, Adia and Sara are presenting their work this week at IEEE Robosoft Conference!

1/2021 - Welcome back to campus Illini! We are excited in innovate in the classroom and in research this semester.

10/2018 - Congratulations to Intel Chen for 2nd Place Prize in the MRS Science as Art competition! Check out his *stunning* pseudocolored butterfly wing SEM image below: