Marcia O’Malley, Thomas Michael Panos Family Professor in Mechanical Engineering and chair of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the George R. Brown School of Engineering and Computing at Rice University, was selected as one of the six winners of the 11th Nagamori awards. She will be recognized at the 11th Nagamori Awards commendation ceremony on September 7, 2025 in Kyoto, Japan.
This award is bestowed by a Japanese non-profit—Nagamori Foundation—that was established in 2014 to financially support and commend mid-career scientists and engineers who make significant contributions to research and development in motors, actuators, and power generators. These devices are critically important for our daily lives and account for more than 55% of world’s power consumption today.
“It is a distinct honor to be recognized for contributions to actuator design and control technology, and I’m grateful to the Nagamori Foundation for the opportunity to showcase our lab’s decades of work in this domain,” said O’Malley.
O’Malley was selected for her ‘contributions to the design of exoskeleton robots and implementation of shared control algorithms to assist upper limb movements.’ She develops robotic devices and control algorithms that enable physical interactions between humans and machines, with an emphasis on applications in rehabilitation of upper limb function and coordination for individuals who have suffered from stroke and spinal cord injury. These devices use haptic feedback to sense and apply consistent, appropriate pressure during repetitive physical movements. Thus, they act like a virtual coach to help a patient regain and recover motor movement after injury or surgery by improving their muscle strength and flexibility. These are also used to train amputees to use prosthetic limbs and surgeons to use virtual reality simulators.
In the domain of virtual reality, she has developed custom devices and control systems that enable individuals to perform complex virtual tasks with touch and visual feedback from the virtual objects. Additionally, she has developed specialized devices and control systems that allow humans to interact with remote environments while receiving touch and haptic feedback through wearables such as the HaptX VR gloves, and the tactile and squeeze bracelets.
O’Malley has received several recognitions for her outstanding work, including the Office of Naval Research (ONR) Young Investigator Award and the NSF CAREER Award. She has also received the Presidential Mentoring Award and is a two-time recipient of the George R. Brown Award for Superior Teaching at Rice University. She is a fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) and the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE). She has served as editor-in-chief of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation Conference Editorial Board, associate editor-in-chief of the IEEE Transactions on Haptics, chair of the ASME Robotics Public Policy Task Force and as a member of the ASME committee on government relations.