Group Members

We are looking for new Postdocs to join the team (see openings) !

Director

Pierre E. Dupont, Ph. D.


Edward P. Marram Chair and Chief, Pediatric Cardiac Bioengineering, Boston Children’s Hospital, Professor of Surgery, Harvard Medical School
Contact: Pierre.Dupont@childrens.harvard.edu

Post-doctoral Research Fellows

Max McCandless, Ph.D.

Interests: Medical Robotics, Surgical Robotics, Soft Robotic Sensing and Actuation
Contact: Max.Mccandless@childrens.harvard.edu
Bio: Max received his Ph.D. in 2023 from Boston University. His research involves the design, modeling, and control of soft robots for minimally invasive surgery.​ He is working toward developing new robots for cardiac interventions.

Abhijit Mondal, Ph.D.

Interests: Biomedical engineering, medical devices, intraoperative imaging, endoscopy
Contact: Abhijit.Mondal@childrens.harvard.edu
Bio: Abhijit received his PhD in Bioengineering in 2017 from University of Utah (Salt Lake City, UT, USA). His research involves the development of airway stent systems for treating tracheobronchomalacia.

Yuan Wang, M.S.

Interests: Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Robot Modeling, Medical Device Algorithms
Contact: Yuan.Wang3@childrens.harvard.edu
Bio: Yuan earned her M.S. degree from Shanghai Jiao Tong University. Her current research focuses on the development of learning-based methods for kinematic modeling of medical robots.

Phillip Tran, Ph.D.

Interests: Design, Medical Robotics, Controls
Contact: Phillip.Tran@childrens.harvard.edu
Bio: Phillip received his Ph.D. in 2023 from the Georgia Institute of Technology, where his research focused on the design and development of a soft robotic hand exoskeleton. His current research involves investigating modeling and control techniques for tendon-driven telescoping catheters used in cardiac interventions.

Neel Shihora, Ph.D.

Interests: Surgical Robotics, Haptics, Modeling and Simulation, Continuum Robots, Controls
Contact: Neel.Shihora@childrens.harvard.edu
Bio: Neel received his Ph.D. in 2024 from Vanderbilt University, where his research focused on task-based design, modeling, and telemanipulation assistance of dexterous robotics for surgical confined spaces and remote intervention. His current research involves investigating modeling and control techniques for tendon-driven telescoping catheters used in cardiac interventions.

Namrata U. Nayar, Ph.D.

Interests: Surgical Robotics, Design, Control, Perception
Contact: Namrata.UnnikrishnanNayar@childrens.harvard.edu
Bio: Namrata received her Ph.D. in 2024 from the Georgia Institute of Technology, where her research focused on the design and development of robotic transcatheter systems, with an emphasis on control using medical imaging. Her current research involves developing a robotic delivery system for cardiac interventions with intuitive control strategies and ease of adaptability for current medical devices.

Lea Pistorius, B.S. 

Interests: Biomedical engineering, medical and surgical devices, design
Contact: Lea.Pistorius@childrens.harvard.edu
Bio: Léa completed her Bachelor’s degree in Life Science Engineering at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland. She is now pursuing a Master’s degree in Biomedical Engineering at the Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich (ETH Zurich), in Switzerland. For her Master’s thesis, Léa is working at the Dupont Laboratory, where her research focuses on developing and evaluating a robotic tendon-driven catheter designed for cardiac procedures.

Jonathan Hamid, B.S.

Interests: Biomedical engineering, medical devices, medical and surgical robotics
Contact: Jonathan.Hamid@childrens.harvard.edu
Bio: Jonathan completed his Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering at the Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich (ETH Zürich) in Switzerland in 2022. He is currently pursuing a Master’s degree in Biomedical Engineering at the same institution. His Master’s thesis at the Dupont Laboratory focuses on the design, manufacturing, and control of soft robots for minimally invasive intracardiac procedures.

Alumni

Xiaowei Lin, B.S., M.Sc. Student at ETH Zurich, Switzerland

Giovanni Pittiglio, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, MA

Margherita Mencattelli, Ph.D., Sr. R&D Engineer, Medtronic, Boston, MA

Silvan Otto, B.S., M.Sc. student at ETH Zurich, Switzerland

Abdulhamit Donder, Senior Robotics/Controls Engineer, Medtronic, Boston, MA

Yash Chitalia, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Director HeaRT, University of Louisville, Louisville, KY

Fabio Leuenberger, M.Sc. student at ETH Zurich, Switzerland

Thibaud Bertrand, M.Sc., Biomedical Engineer, ETH Zurich Alumni, Switzerland

Joe Peine, M.Sc., Mechanical Engineer, Vicarious Surgical, Boston, MA

Karl Price, M.Sc., Mechanical Engineer, Boston Dynamics, Waltham, MA

Junhyoung Ha, Ph.D., Senior Researcher at Korea Institute of Science and Technology, Seoul, Korea

Georgios Fagogenis, Ph.D., Software Engineer - Motion Planning and Decision Making at Argo AI, Munich, Germany

Jiaole Wang, Ph.D., Associate Professor at School of Mechanical Engineering and Automation, Harbin Institute of Technology, Shenzhen, China

Martina Finocchiaro, B.Sc, Marie Curie PhD student, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain

Gustavo Arnal, Product Development Engineer at Sage Product Development, Inc., Forborough, MA

Zurab Machaidze, M.D., Medical Director, Clinical Development at Apellis Pharmaceuticals, Waltham, MA

Benoit Rosa, Ph.D., Research Scientist, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), University of Strasbourg, France

Sunil Manjila, M.D., Staff Neurosurgeon, Department of Neurosurgery, Insight Institute of Neurosurgery & Neuroscience, Insight Research Institute, Flint, MI

Chunwoo Kim, Ph.D., Senior Researcher, Health Care Robot Group, Korea Institute of Science and Technology, Seoul, Korea

Ali Ataollahi, Ph.D., Entrepreneur

Aaron Becker, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Houston

Dana Damian, Ph.D., Lecturer, Automatic Control and System Engineering Department, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK

Alina Eqtami, Ph.D., Université Paris-Saclay, CNRS, CentraleSupélec, Laboratoire des Signaux et Systèmes

Ouajdi Felfoul, Ph.D., MR lead system designer, GE Healthcare

Seokchang Ryu, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Texas A&M University

Ignacio Berra, M.D., Staff Surgeon, Cardiovascular Surgery and Transplant, Hospital de Pediatria J.P. Garrahan, Buenos Aires, Argentina

Patrick Codd, M.D., Associate Professor of Neurosurgery, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC

Gioia Lucarini, Ph.D., Postdoc, Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna in Pisa, Italy

Andrew Gosline, Ph.D., Senior Systems Engineer, Simplexity Product Development, Inc., Seattle, WA

Christos Bergeles, Ph.D., Associate Professor (Reader) at King’s College London, London, England, United Kingdom

Slava Arabagi, Ph.D., Helbling Precision Engineering

Panagiotis Vartholomeos, Ph.D., Assistant Professor at the University of Thessaly, Greece

Hongliang Ren, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Chinese University of Hong Kong

Jesse Lock, Ph.D., M.D., Chief Medical Officer, Etiometry, Inc. / Pediatrician

Mohsen Mahvash, Ph.D., Senior Research Scientist at KLA-Tencor, San Jose, California

Gianni Campion, Ph.D., Systems Software Specialist, CAE Healthcare, Montreal, Quebec

Wenyuan Chen, Ph.D., Director of Product Engineering, JLC Group LLC

Prakash Kasturi, Ph.D., Principal Firmware Engineer, Newport Corp.

Thomas Debus, Ph.D., Alliance Spacesystems, Inc.

Jeff Stoll, Ph.D., Ultrasound Innovations Group, Siemens Medical Solutions

Evan Butler, M.Sc., President, Etiometry, Inc.

Genevieve Laing, M.Sc., Product Engineer, Medtronic, Inc.

Sudeep Deshpande, M.Sc., Boston Consulting Group

Pat Sears, M.Sc., Alliance Spacesystems, Inc.

Matt Heverly, M.Sc., Technical Staff, Jet Propulsion Lab.

Shaun Selha, M.Sc., Project Manager, SourceOne, Inc.

Brandon Itkowitz, M.Sc., Intuitive Surgical, Inc.

Ben Wolf, M.Sc., NMT Medical, Inc.