Bio-Informed Research & Design · UC Davis
Learning from birds to understand flight.
Flight is one of nature's greatest experiments. We study birds not to copy them, but to discover the principles that govern flight itself.
2022Founded
24Publications
17Researchers
Our research
Many desirable characteristics of bird flight still elude current aircraft design. We study birds to identify which attributes are useful for engineered systems and which attributes are not.
What we study
- Morphology & Kinematics We quantify how wings, tails, feathers, and joints move to uncover the mechanics of avian flight.
- Mechanics & Dynamics We investigate how birds generate aerodynamic and inertial forces to perform agile flight maneuvers.
- Sensing & Control We study how animals sense and control flight to inspire adaptive autonomous systems.
Why it matters
- Adaptable drones We translate avian control actions into maneuvers to enable UAV operation in urban and disaster environments.
- Healthier wildlife We establish quantitative metrics to improve wild raptor rehabilitation and release success.
- The next generation We train the next generation of engineers and scientists to tackle complex, interdisciplinary challenges.
Bio-informed, not just bio-inspired
Our framework separates biological source, level of mimicry and strength of evidence, making bio-inspired claims easier to evaluate and compare.
In partnership with
California Raptor CenterRaptor rehabilitation center.
California Hawking ClubLicensed general and master falconers.
Museum of Wildlife and Fish BiologyRegistered and certified vertebrate museum.
UC Davis One Health InstituteInstitute at the interface of animals, people, plants, and the environment.All listed partners are dedicated to education, outreach, conservation, and research.
Unique Facilities
The Center for Animal Locomotion & Innovation (CALI)
World-class high-speed, high-resolution photogrammetry and motion capture capabilities to study animal or engineered locomotion.
Open science
Transparency is part of good science. Our lab guide is public, and we share our data and code with publication, often alongside plain-language summaries.
Public Lab Guide
A searchable, living-document wiki of how we run the lab open for anyone to read.
Code and Datasets
Released alongside our papers, so results can be checked and built upon.
Behind the papers
Short, jargon-light posts on what we found and why it matters, written for readers from any background.
Latest news
2026
-
July 2026
- We're hiring! Applications for our paid, part-time Social Media Coordinator position are open until September 30 — details on the Join page.
- Welcome to Adam Halford who joins us from West Point Academy, as an intern for the month of July.
- The lab received a CITRIS Seed Funding Program award in collaboration with Dr. Grace Gu (UC Berkeley) and Dr. Zhaodan Kong (UC Davis).
-
June 2026
- The lab received an NSF CAREER Award to investigate lateral maneuvering in raptors.
- Alex Fillman and Kaleb Bordner presented posters at BISCCITs in Wageningen, The Netherlands.
- Kaleb Bordner and Francisco Jackson presented papers at the AIAA AVIATION Forum.
- Paper led by Dr. Alfonso Martínez in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface on raptor perching behavior.
- Adrian Chan graduated and joined Stanford University. We also welcomed undergraduate researchers Prabhat Karthikeyan, Elliot Crowder, Emiliano Godinez, Zak Conte, Ananya Bansal, and Haelie Tweet to the lab.
- Dr. Harvey gave an invited talk at the XXV US–Poland Science & Technology Symposium.
-
May 2026
- The Center for Animal Locomotion & Innovation (CALI) celebrated its official grand opening.
-
April 2026
- Alex Fillman received the 2026 Maury L. Hull Endowed Fellowship for Musculoskeletal Biomechanics Research.
- Dr. Harvey gave an invited talk at the Janelia Simulated Bodies Symposium.
- Paper by Dr. Harvey in Communications Engineering introduced a transparent framework for reporting how bio-inspired a design really is.
-
March 2026
- Kaleb Bordner and Francisco Jackson passed the QE exam advancing to PhD candidacy.
- Kaleb Bordner and Adam Zhu presented at the Gordon Research Conference on Multifunctional Materials & Structures (Ventura, CA).
- Paper by Kiran Weston and Adam Zhu, in collaboration with Dr. Graham Taylor (University of Oxford), was published in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface.
-
February 2026
- Dr. Harvey gave an invited seminar at Stanford University.
-
January 2026
- Alex Fillman passed the FE exam.
- Narihide Fujita, Meghna Tirumalai, and Wyatt Liu joined the lab as undergraduate researchers.
- Ava Lewis was selected as an AIAA Rising Star in Aerospace and attended the AIAA SciTech Forum (Orlando, FL).
- Faiza Alvi and Alex Fillman presented research on avian airfoil aerodynamics and tail range of motion at the SICB Annual Meeting (Portland, OR).
- Dr. Harvey and Dr. Jasmin Wong organized the SICB symposium 'Dinosaurs to Drones: Comparative Approaches to Flight'.
2025
-
December 2025
- Dr. Harvey joined the Editorial Board of Communications Engineering.
- The Bird Flight Research Center was completed on schedule and within budget, with the imaging system commissioned ahead of the March 2026 grand opening.
-
September 2025
- The lab received new AFOSR support to investigate co-design of morphing and control systems with Dr. Sean Humbert (CU Boulder).
- Dr. Harvey gave an invited seminar at UC Berkeley.
- Joshua Booth and Cooper Cook transitioned from undergraduate researchers to PhD students.
-
June 2025
- Stevi Dunn and Gaurav Dhirar graduated and began industry positions.
- Kaleb Bordner and Francisco Jackson returned to the U.S. Army Research Laboratory for summer experiments with Dr. Kevin Haughn.
-
May 2025
- Dr. Harvey gave an invited seminar at UC San Diego on bio-informed morphing and flight stability and control.
-
April 2025
- Paper in Global Ecology and Biogeography linked climate and avian morphology, providing evidence for a role of thermoregulation in bird wing evolution.
-
March 2025
- The lab received a CCAH award, led by Dr. Alfonso Martínez with Dr. Michelle Hawkins, to build an avian flight database for raptor rehabilitation.
-
February 2025
- The lab hosted the Northern California Aerospace Symposium (NCAS) at UC Davis.
-
January 2025
- Adam Zhu and Francisco Jackson presented research on formation-flight sensing and avian airfoil dynamic stall at the AIAA SciTech Forum (Orlando, FL).
2024
-
November 2024
- Groundbreaking began for the Bird Flight Research Center at the California Raptor Center.
- Dr. Harvey gave an invited seminar at EPFL (Lausanne, Switzerland).
-
September 2024
- Faiza Alvi (PhD), Alex Fillman, and Evan Wandrocke (MS) joined the lab, and Adam Zhu transitioned to the PhD program.
-
April 2024
- Paper in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface demonstrated optimized elbow and wrist morphing trajectories using an LPV flight-dynamics model.
-
March 2024
- Paper in Communications Engineering (led by Dr. Kevin Haughn) showed that deep reinforcement learning controllers can reject gusts using as few as three pressure taps.
-
February 2024
- The lab received a $2.9M DURIP award from U.S. Army Combat Compatibility Development Command Army Research Office, with Dr. Michelle Hawkins.
-
January 2024
- Rowan Glenn received the AIAA Jefferson Goblet Student Paper Award at the AIAA SciTech Forum (Orlando, FL).
- Dr. Harvey was elected Secretary of the AIAA Adaptive Structures Technical Committee.
2023
-
November 2023
- Dr. Alfonso Martínez joined the lab as its first postdoctoral scholar.
-
October 2023
- Dr. Harvey was named a 2023 Packard Fellow.
-
August 2023
- Kaleb Bordner (the lab's first PhD student) and Francisco Jackson (the lab's first MS student) joined the lab.
-
April 2023
- Review in the Journal of Experimental Biology examined how biological insight has shaped, and can continue to advance, aircraft design.
2022
-
October 2022
- Benjamin Tai-Brownlee joined as the lab's first undergraduate researcher.
-
September 2022
- Paper in PNAS demonstrated that gulls regulate longitudinal dynamic stability through wing morphing.
-
July 2022
- The BIRD Lab officially opened as Dr. Harvey joined the faculty at UC Davis.
The BIRD Lab, 2026 · Meet the Team →
