Nathan Michael, assistant research professor of robotics, was part of a team at Penn cited by Popular Mechanics as one of “Ten Innovators Who Changed The World in 2013.” The Penn team, led by Vijay Kumar, is developing tiny quadrotors that can autonomously fly in squadrons to map and assess dangerously compromised buildings. Michael, who joined the Robotics Institute in 2012, told the magazine small, unmanned aerial vehicles “may change how we think about the whole cycle of disaster – not just responding to the aftermath but preventing losses beforehand by mapping out challenging environments."