Office: Fluor Daniel EIB Building 106
Phone: (864) 656-5620
Fax: (864) 656-4435
Email: aleones@clemson.edu
Alexander Leonessa joined Clemson University in 2025 as Chair of the Department of Mechanical Engineering after serving as a program director at the National Science Foundation (NSF). At NSF, he managed the Mind, Machine, Motor Nexus (M3X) program, which supports fundamental research on bidirectional interaction between humans and intelligent engineered systems. In addition to M3X, he contributed to broader NSF efforts in dynamic systems and control, robotics, and computational neuroscience, helping to cultivate interdisciplinary collaborations and community-building activities across these areas.
Prior to NSF, Leonessa was a professor at Virginia Tech, where he led a successful research program in controls and robotics, advised graduate students, secured federal and industry funding, and held multiple leadership roles supporting strategic initiatives and research development.
At Clemson, Leonessa is focused on strengthening the department’s research enterprise, fostering cross-disciplinary partnerships within CECAS and with health and life sciences, and expanding hands-on, design-forward educational opportunities that prepare students for emerging careers at the human–technology frontier.
Ph.D., Aerospace Engineering, Georgia Tech, 1999
M.S., Applied Mathematics, Georgia Tech, 1999
M.S., Aerospace Engineering, Georgia Tech, 1997
B.S., Aeronautical Engineering, University of Rome "La Sapienza", 1993
Leonessa's scholarly interests span control theory, cyber-physical and autonomous systems, human–robot interaction, rehabilitation and assistive robotics. His work has appeared in leading venues in controls and robotics and includes partnerships with clinical and industrial collaborators.
Dafarra, S., Pattacini, U., Romualdi, G., Rapetti, L., Grieco, R., Darvish, K., Milani, G., Valli, E., Sorrentino, I., Viceconte, P.M. and Scalzo, A., 2024. icub3 avatar system: Enabling remote fully immersive embodiment of humanoid robots. Science Robotics, 9(86), p.eadh3834.
Kalita, B., Leonessa, A. and Dwivedy, S.K., 2022, October. A review on the development of pneumatic artificial muscle actuators: Force model and application. In Actuators (Vol. 11, No. 10, p. 288). MDPI.
Beauchene, C., Abaid, N., Moran, R., Diana, R.A. and Leonessa, A., 2017. The effect of binaural beats on verbal working memory and cortical connectivity. Journal of neural engineering, 14(2), p.026014.
Griffin, R.J., Wiedebach, G., Bertrand, S., Leonessa, A. and Pratt, J., 2017, September. Walking stabilization using step timing and location adjustment on the humanoid robot, atlas. In 2017 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS) (pp. 667-673). IEEE.
Christie, G., Shoemaker, A., Kochersberger, K., Tokekar, P., McLean, L. and Leonessa, A., 2017. Radiation search operations using scene understanding with autonomous UAV and UGV. Journal of Field Robotics, 34(8), pp.1450-1468.
Beauchene, C., Abaid, N., Moran, R., Diana, R.A. and Leonessa, A., 2016. The effect of binaural beats on visuospatial working memory and cortical connectivity. PloS one, 11(11), p.e0166630.
Hopkins, M.A., Hong, D.W. and Leonessa, A., 2015, May. Compliant locomotion using whole-body control and divergent component of motion tracking. In 2015 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) (pp. 5726-5733). IEEE.
Hopkins, M.A., Hong, D.W. and Leonessa, A., 2014, November. Humanoid locomotion on uneven terrain using the time-varying divergent component of motion. In 2014 ieee-ras international conference on humanoid robots (pp. 266-272). IEEE.
Leonessa, A., Haddad, W.M., Hayakawa, T. and Morel, Y., 2009. Adaptive control for nonlinear uncertain systems with actuator amplitude and rate saturation constraints. International Journal of Adaptive Control and Signal Processing, 23(1), pp.73-96.
Leonessa, A., Haddad, W.M. and Chellaboina, V., 2002. Nonlinear system stabilization via hierarchical switching control. IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, 46(1), pp.17-28.