Engineers who built the problem before building the solution
Three founders from Carnegie Mellon's Robotics Institute and an industrial-robotics OEM background, joined by the shared experience of hitting the same actuator wall across multiple programs.
Small team, deep domain expertise
James Whitaker
CEO & Co-Founder
James spent three years as lead actuator engineer at a Pittsburgh robotics lab, where he worked on joint module design for bipedal platforms before founding Tendonkindle in 2024. He leads overall product direction, hardware specification, and evaluation partner engagement. His background combines mechanical engineering with embedded motor control — he designed the first Tendonkindle prototype and the strain-wave gearbox integration architecture that became the Gen 1 module.
Nadia Osei
CTO & Co-Founder
Nadia brings embedded control systems and real-time software depth from her research at Carnegie Mellon's Robotics Institute, where she focused on impedance control and force-controlled manipulation. As CTO, she leads the motion SDK architecture, the embedded firmware for joint state sensing, and the ROS 2 hardware abstraction layer. Her work on the impedance control loop is what makes the Tendonkindle module functional from first boot rather than requiring months of control tuning by each integration team.
Rafael Tran
Head of Motion Systems
Rafael brings six years of industrial-robotics OEM experience — most recently as a motion systems engineer at a Pittsburgh-based industrial robotics integrator, where he designed gearbox-motor integration for high-cycle assembly systems. At Tendonkindle, he leads the Gen 1 mechanical design, the strain-wave gearbox qualification testing, and the MuJoCo motor model export pipeline. His OEM background informs the module's approach to sealing, thermal management, and production-oriented tolerancing.
Talk to the team directly
We engage with evaluation partners directly — no sales layer. If your program has a joint actuator requirement, send us a technical brief and we will respond within two business days.
Contact the Team