August 6, 2025 Alapan group wins ‘Best Application Paper’ at MARSS 2025 conference Written By: Caitlin Scott Departments: Mechanical Engineering Categories: Awards|Faculty Yunus Alapan Congratulations to Mechanical Engineering Assistant Professor Yunus Alapan’s group on winning the ‘Best Application Paper Award’ at the recent MARSS 2025 conference at Purdue University! Alapan group team members Youyi Zhou and Fatih Kocabas were nominated this year along with three other groups from Germany, Canada, and Taiwan. Check out their winning paper, ‘Microporous Magnetic Soft Materials with Programmable Locomotion and On-Demand Liquid Cargo Release.’ The MARSS (International Conference on Manipulation, Automation and Robotics at Small Scales) focuses on 1) manipulation, automation, measurement, and characterization at micro/nano scales, and 2) all kinds of small-scale robots (nm – cm) and their applications. This is one of the Alapan group’s main conferences. Learn more about the Alapan Bio-integrated Robotics Lab. Pictured: PhD student Youyi Zhou receives the award from David Cappelleri, Professor in Mechanical Engineering and Assistant Vice President for Research Innovation at Purdue University. He was also the General Chair and organizer for this year’s conference. The three people on the right side of the stage are the other award nominees.