Daniel Siegel

update (fall 2025) - I've dropped out of Tufts University to work on robotics full-time. I'm at Integral Mimetics focused on reliable robot motion and perception in everyday settings.

I'm a computer engineer and robotics researcher based between Woodside, Palo Alto, and San Francisco. Previously I worked on ML for low-power AI hardware at FemtoAI, designed quantum circuits at Katmai Computing, and built humanoid robots with Tangible.

I am curious about implicit feedback loops, especially in biomimetic systems. I'm especially interested in René Girard's Mimetic Theory and what it looks like when you extend mimetic dynamics to complex systems.

Mimetics is learning by imitation, the oldest way any creature or thing has ever learned, and now applied to the newest learners. The bottleneck is the quality of the data we use to teach. So I design the hardware and software that captures signals with enough fidelity for complex systems to learn from them.

At Stanford, I contributed to the Biomechatronics Lab's self-steering cane project and designed adjustable manipulator fixtures for Dr. Mark Schnitzer's Lab. I also developed several projects with Tufts' IdeaLAB.

Featured Projects

Note: I'm still updating this site with other projects I've been working on over the past year since I'm pretty busy working on the projects instead of documenting them! Also sadly some of my projects, especially those within my contract work, cannot be shared online due to NDAs, and I take those seriously. If you're curious about the areas I've worked in, like sparsity-aware edge ML for DSP and 1D time-series data, drones/RF, warehouse automation, or robotics (physical and industrial design, DFMA/DFAM, materials research), please email me at daniel@integralmimetics.com and I'm happy to talk about the nature of the work, the skills and research involved, and general results, always within what those agreements allow.

Academics

LaTeX Notes  -  Calculus II / Embedded Systems

Clubs & Societies - Tufts IEEE, Jumbo Juggling / Fire & Flow Club, Mitre eCTF, Tufts Solar Vehicle Project (TSVP), Music Production Club, Society of Physics Students

Lab Affiliations

Tufts IDEALab (Prof. James Intriligator), Harvard Innovation Labs, Nolop FAST Facility, Stanford Pyramidal Lab (Prof. Mark Schnitzer), Stanford Biomechatronics Lab, De Anza Additive Manufacturing Lab

  • Emerging Tech Winner - JumboHack Hackathon
  • OctoGrasp
    • Grand Award - International Science and Engineering Fair (2nd Place in Biomedical Engineering)
    • Grand Prize - Best of Championship (Physical Sciences) - Synopsys Silicon Valley Science and Technology Championship
    • 1st Award, Physical Science and Engineering Category - Synopsys Silicon Valley Science and Technology Championship
    • IBM Award
    • Office of Naval Research - United States Navy / US Marine Corps Award
    • IEEE Electro-Technology Award
    • 2nd Place, California Science and Engineering Fair
  • Silicon Valley Engineering Council Award (dinner w/ Jensen Huang lol)
  • Surround3
    • Castro Family Award for Best Physical Science Projects - Synopsys Silicon Valley Science and Technology Championship
    • 1st Award, Physical Science and Engineering Category - Synopsys Silicon Valley Science and Technology Championship
    • Synopsys Outreach Foundation n+1 Prize
    • Nominated to compete - Broadcom MASTERS
    • Honorable Mention, California Science and Engineering Fair
  • Weights & Biases Award - WeaveHacks
  • 3rd Place - Tufts Robot-a-thon
  • Honorable Mention - Code Metal Smart Cities Hackathon
  • ONR Medallion, United States Navy and Marine Corps
  • Video Design Award - First Robotics Competition (FRC)
Personal Info

"The best way to predict the future
is to invent it." - Alan Kay