Program

Professor Ferdinando Rodriguez y Baena is a leading expert in medical robotics, serving as Professor of Medical Robotics in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Engineering Co-Director of the Hamlyn Centre at Imperial College London. He directs the Mechatronics in Medicine Laboratory, where his research integrates mechatronic systems into medicine, particularly focusing on clinical training, precision diagnostics, and innovative surgical interventions.

As a founding member of the Imperial College Robotics Forum, Professor Rodriguez y Baena promotes interdisciplinary collaboration among researchers, engineers, and clinicians. His research group, comprising over 20 researchers and PhD students, is committed to both groundbreaking research and technology translation to clinical applications.

Professor Rodriguez y Baena has chaired several prestigious international committees and conferences, and he has been awarded numerous honours, including the Leverhulme Prize in Engineering. He has led major international research initiatives such as the €8.3 million EU project EDEN2020 on robotic-assisted neurosurgical drug delivery and the £4.5M UKRI-funded programme ROBOGAST, advancing robotic technologies for gastrointestinal applications. He has authored over 160 scientific publications and secured more than £20 million in research funding.

Arianna Menciassi (Fellow, IEEE) received the M.Sc. degree in physics from the University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy, in 1995, and the Ph.D. degree in bioengineering from Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna (SSSA), Pisa, Italy, in 1999. She is currently a Professor of bioengineering and biomedical robotics with SSSA, where she is the Team Leader of Surgical Robotics & Allied Technologies within The BioRobotics Institute. She served as Coordinator of the Ph.D. in BioRobotics in the period Feb. 2019-Feb. 2025, and in April 2019 she was appointed as the Vice-Rector of the SSSA for 6 years. Her research interests include surgical robotics, microrobotics for biomedical applications, biomechatronic artificial organs, and smart and soft solutions for biomedical devices.

She pays special attention to the combination of traditional robotics, targeted therapy, and wireless solutions for therapy (e.g., ultrasound- and magnetic-based solutions). She has served for many years as the Co-Chair of the IEEE Technical Committee on Surgical Robotics. Prof. Menciassi is an Editor for the IEEE Transactions of Robotics and APL Bioengineering and she is an Associate Editor for Soft Robotics. She received the Well-tech Award (Milan, Italy) for her researches on endoscopic capsules, and she was awarded by the Tuscany Region with the Gonfalone D’Argento, in 2007, as one of the best 10 young talents of the region. In 2020, she has been awarded with the KUKA Innovation Award, for her activities on robotic assisted focused ultrasound.

Dr. Jaydev P. Desai is currently a Professor and Cardiovascular Biomedical Engineering Distinguished Chair in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory. Previously, he held one of the two inaugural G.P. “Bud” Peterson and Valerie H. Peterson Faculty Professorship in Pediatric Research. He is also the Associate Chair for Undergraduate studies in BME, Adjunct Professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering and George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering, and founding Director of the Georgia Center for Medical Robotics (GCMR). He completed his undergraduate studies from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, India, in 1993. He received his MA in Mathematics in 1997 and MSE and Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics in 1995 and 1998 respectively, all from the University of Pennsylvania. He was also a Post-Doctoral Fellow in the Division of Engineering and Applied Sciences at Harvard University.

Dr. Desai is a recipient of several NIH R01 grants, NSF CAREER award, and was the lead inventor on the “Outstanding Invention in the Physical Science Category” at the University of Maryland, College Park, where he was formerly employed. He has given numerous Keynote, Plenary, and other invited talks, including an invited talk at the National Academy of Sciences “Distinctive Voices” seminar series. He was also invited to attend the National Academy of Engineering’s U.S. Frontiers of Engineering Symposium. Dr. Desai has provided tremendous service to the professional community including the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society (RAS) and was recently an invited panel member of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine Panel on Assessment of Military Information Sciences. He is an author of over 225 peer-reviewed publications, 6 book chapters, is the founding Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Medical Robotics Research, former Senior Editor of IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, Associate Editor of IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering, and Editor-in-Chief of the four-volume Encyclopedia of Medical Robotics. At the 2018 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), his seminal work in swarm robotics was the finalist for “IEEE RAS Award for the Most Influential Paper from ICRA 1998” (20-years impact). Dr. Desai recently received the 2024 IEEE RAS George Saridis Leadership Award in Robotics and Automation for his foundational work in medical robotics and swarm robotics as well as service to the IEEE RAS. He is also the recipient of the Ralph R. Teetor Educational Award and the 2021 IEEE RAS Distinguished Service Award. His research group has received several accolades including the best student paper award, best symposium paper award, cover image of IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering, and featured article in the IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering. His current research interests are primarily in the areas of endovascular and transcatheter robotics, image-guided surgical robotics, MEMS-based cancer diagnosis, pediatric robotics, and rehabilitation and assistive robotics. He is a Fellow of the IEEE, ASME, and AIMBE.

Olivier Da Costa is a Program Officer in the "Artificial Intelligence Office" of the European Commission's DG "Communications Networks, Content and Technology" (DG CNECT). Since 2008, he has been in charge of 68 projects, 26 of which in healthcare (robotics surgery or assistance to surgery, rehabilitation, prothesis, exoskeletons, improvement of healthcare with artificial intelligence and robotics, use of social robots for the interaction with patients including children and seniors…). Previously, he was working as a consultant in future studies and foresight, and in the strategy of innovation. He was a researcher in plasma physics applied to nuclear fusion in France, UK and Japan. He graduated in 1990 and received his PhD in 1995 both from Ecole Polytechnique in France.

Marco Zenati is a tenured Professor of Surgery at Harvard Medical School (HMS) in Boston, Massachusetts, Chief of Cardiac Surgery at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs/Boston Healthcare System and an Associate Surgeon in the Mass General Brigham (MGB) Division of Cardiac Surgery. Dr Zenati attended Catholic University School of Medicine in Rome, Italy and graduated from the University of Verona in 1986. After completing postgraduate training in Cardiovascular Surgery in 1991 at the University of Verona, and in Cardiothoracic Surgery and Transplantation at the University of Pittsburgh, he joined the faculty at Pitt in 1996 as Director of the Minimally Invasive and Robotic Cardiac Surgery Program, as well as Adjunct Faculty at the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University. In 2008 he was promoted to full Professor of Surgery and Bioengineering at Pitt. In 1998 Dr Zenati founded and currently directs the Medical Robotics and Computer Assisted Surgery (MRCAS) Laboratory (currently at HMS), which has been continuously funded by the NIH and the NSF for over 20 years. He is the Author of more than 200 international peer reviewed papers on cardiovascular surgery and medical robotics and the inventor of several patents. He is Associate Editor of IEEE Transaction on Medical Robotics and Bionics. He is the Chairman of the Bioengineering, Technology, and Surgical Sciences (BTSS) Study Section of the NIH/Center for Scientific Review. His research interests include clinical trials, robot/computer-assisted platforms, artificial intelligence, cognitive engineering.