Sonia Roberts uses knitting as a manufacturing method for soft robots, with a focus on developing new sensors and actuators which can be incorporated into knitted robot skins. She leads the Soft Robots Lab at Wesleyan. 

Her PhD in Electrical and Systems Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania, advised by Daniel Koditschek, was on legged robot locomotion on soft grounds, such as sand. She received her bachelor's degree from Vassar College, where she worked with John Long using swimming robots to study evolutionary biology. Before joining Wesleyan, she worked on sensors for soft origami-inspired robots with Kris Dorsey at Northeastern University.