Keynote Speakers
Richard Satava, MD FACS, PhD(hc)
Professor Emeritus of Surgery. University of Washington Medical CenterPrior academic positions include Professor of Surgery at Yale University and a military appointment as Professor of Surgery (USUHS) in the Army Medical Corps assigned to General Surgery at Walter Reed Army Medical Center and former Astronaut candidate. Government positions included Program Manager of Advanced Biomedical Technology at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) for 12 years and Senior Science Advisor at the US Army Medical Research and Materiel Command in Ft. Detrick, Maryland, and Director of the NASA Commercial Space Center for Medical Informatics Telemedicine, and Advanced Technology (NASA-CSCMITAT) at Yale University. Upon completion of military career and government service he had continued clinical medicine at Yale University and University of Washington. He also holds a PhD(hon) at Semmelweis University in Budapest, Hungary and PhD(hon) at Titu Maiorescu University in Bucharest Romania and DSc from Medical University of Pleven, Pleven Bulgaria.
He has served in government on the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) Committee on Health, Food and Safety and was also awarded the prestigious Department of Defense Legion of Merit and Department of Defense Exceptional Service medals as well as awarded the Smithsonian Laureate in Healthcare. He has been a member of numerous committees of the American College of Surgeons (ACS), currently serving on the ACS-Accredited Education Institutes (ACS-AEI). He is a Past President of the Society of American Gastrointestinal Endoscopic Surgeons (SAGES), the Society of Laparoendoscopic Surgeons (SLS), the Society of Medical Innovation and Therapy (SMIT), and a former member of the Aerospace Medical Association. He was a member of the National Board of Medical Examiners (NBME) and is currently on the Board of many surgical societies and on the editorial board of numerous surgical and scientific journals, and active in a number of surgical and engineering societies.
In pioneering research in telepresence surgery, he was the surgeon on the project that developed the first surgical robot, which later became the DaVinci Surgical Robot. He also was the founder of the Medicine Meets Virtual Reality (MMVR) conference and built (with Jaron Lanier), the first VR simulator for surgery (in 1989). Shortly thereafter, while at DARPA, he funded all robotic surgery research and all VR medical simulation for the first 10 years of their development.
For 5 years he was a member of the Advisory Board of the National Space Biomedical Research Institute (NSBRI) advising NASA in the use of advanced biometric sensing, haptics and other life science research for astronauts. Now Dr. Satava has added being continuously active in surgical education and surgical research, with more than 250 publications and book chapters in diverse areas of advanced surgical technology, including, Video and 3-D imaging, Plasma Medicine, Directed Energy Surgery, Telepresence Surgery, Robotic Surgery and telesurgery, Virtual Reality Surgical Simulation, Objective Assessment of Surgical Competence and Training, Surgical applications in AI, Surgery in Space, and the Moral and Ethical Impact of Advanced Technologies.
During his 23 years of military surgery he had been an active flight surgeon, an Army astronaut candidate, combat tours of duty as MASH surgeon for the Grenada Invasion, and a hospital commander during Desert Storm, all the while continuing clinical surgical practice. Current research is focused on advanced technologies to formulate the architecture for the next generation of clinical Medicine and Surgery, education and training, telesurgery and Surgical AI and Surgery in Space.
Jason J. Corso, PhD
Toyota Professor of AI University of MichiganDr. Jason J. Corso is a Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Michigan. He received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from Johns Hopkins University in 2005. His research spans computer vision, robotics, and machine learning. He is a recipient of the NSF CAREER Award, ARO Young Investigator Award, and Google Faculty Research Award, and serves on the DARPA CSSG.
He is also the Co-Founder and CEO of Voxel51, a computer vision startup building state-of-the-art platforms for video and image-based applications.
Federal Panel
Federal Panel Speakers
Col. Jeremy Pamplin, MD
Program Manager, Biological Technologies Office DARPA
Tyler K. Best, PhD
Acting Director, Health Science Futures Office Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H)Dr. Tyler Best joined ARPA-H in October 2022 from the National Institutes of Health, where he was a Program Officer in the Office of the Director. He is a distinguished neurotechnologist specializing in the development and management of high-reward scientific initiatives. With a rich background in both scientific research and program management, Best excels at identifying, clarifying, and implementing innovative solutions across government, industry, and academic sectors. His expertise spans peripheral nerve interfaces, neuronal biophysics, and various facets of molecular and cellular biology. Best’s career includes significant contributions as a Booz Allen Hamilton associate, where he supported the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). He earned a PhD in neuroscience from the Uniformed Services University and conducted postdoctoral work at Northwestern University and Urogenix Inc.
Shivani Sharma, PhD
Program Director NSFDr. Shivani Sharma is a Program Director in National Science Foundation’s Division of Civil, Mechanical, and Manufacturing Innovation under the Directorate for Engineering. She oversees a portfolio of Biomechanics & Mechanobiology program, NSF-funded research Centers including the Science & Technology Center for Engineering Mechano-Biology, and supports inter-agency programs such as the Smart Health and Biomedical Research in the Era of Artificial Intelligence and Advanced Data Science (SCH). Dr. Sharma champions the integration of artificial intelligence, computational modeling, and robotics into mechanobiology and biomedical research through strategic national and international partnerships.
Moria Fisher Bittmann, PhD
Program Director NIHDr. Moria Fisher Bittmann joined the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB) in 2019 as a Program Director in the Division of Discovery Science and Technology. Dr. Bittmann received a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Michigan and a PhD in Bioengineering from the University of Illinois at Chicago.
Moria conducted her graduate work at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago where she developed customized robotic therapies for post-stroke rehabilitation. She completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Wisconsin in computational biomechanics. Prior to joining NIBIB, she was a Health Program Specialist at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) supporting BRAIN Initiative funding opportunities for invasive technologies, computational neuroscience, and technology dissemination. Throughout her career, she has enjoyed working on interdisciplinary topics, collaborating on projects with engineers, clinicians, computer scientists and biologists.
Lightning Speakers
Industry Lightning Speakers
Timothy Kowalewski, PhD
Associate Professor, University of Minnesota Chief Technical Officer, Co-Founder, LightSide Surgical
Tony Romano
Associate Director Zimmer BiometTony Romano is an experienced product management and engineering leader with over 20 years at Zimmer Biomet, specializing in robotic and knee arthroplasty technologies. He currently serves as Associate Director of Product Management, overseeing strategy, development, and commercialization for robotic total knee solutions.
His prior roles include Associate Director of Supplier Excellence, Integration Manager, Product Manager for Patient Specific and Robotic Knees, Project Manager for New Products, and Senior Development Engineer. Across these positions, he has contributed to major knee system programs including Persona, Natural Knee Flex, and Patient Specific Instruments.
Tony holds a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Purdue University and an MBA from Indiana Institute of Technology, supporting his ability to integrate technical innovation with business strategy. He is also the author of the chapter “Unicompartmental Arthroplasty with Patient Specific Instruments” in Improving Accuracy in Knee Arthroplasty (Jaypee Brothers Medical Publishing, 2012).
Gordon G. Wisbach, MD, MBA, CAPT, MC, USN (RET)
Intuitive SurgicalGordon Wisbach, MD, MBA is a general surgeon that specializes in Minimally Invasive, Metabolic/Bariatric as well as Robotic surgery at the Navy Medicine Readiness & Training Command San Diego (NMTRC-SD). He founded the ACS-accredited Surgical Simulation/Education Fellowship and was the inaugural Tele-Surgical Director of the Virtual Medical Operations Center. Dr. Wisbach was awarded his Medical Degree from Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and completed his residency training at NMRTC-SD. He is fellowship trained in Advanced Laparoscopic/Bariatric Surgery at Brigham & Women’s Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts and earned his MBA from the Naval Post-graduate School in Monterey, California. He is a Professor of Surgery at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Maryland and, in 2022, CAPT Wisbach honorably retired from the US Navy after 24 years of service. During his accomplished career, he served successful leadership positions including inaugural military-wide Director of Surgical Services and carried out numerous overseas deployments that ranged from leading humanitarian to combat surgery teams in austere environments. After military retirement, Dr. Wisbach joined Intuitive Surgical full-time as Lead for Clinical Integration and Telecollaboration to develop digital surgery under the premise to design products and services “by surgeons for surgeons”. Dr. Wisbach has active research interests in surgical education using simulation and advancing surgical tele-mentoring on a trajectory towards tele-surgery as well as leveraging surgical data science to optimize the delivery of surgical care.
Rachel Clipp, PhD
Assistant Director of Medical Computing Kitware, Inc.Rachel Clipp, Ph.D., is a medical computing expert on Kitware’s Medical Computing Team located in Carrboro, North Carolina. She conducts research in computational modeling and artificial intelligence as applied to biomedical problems. Rachel leads medical modeling and simulation projects at Kitware, including those that involve the open source Pulse Physiology Engine. She also leads computational modeling projects using Lattice Boltzmann Methods and artificial intelligence models that represent outcomes from high-fidelity physics-based models and to predict life-saving interventions. She is funded by projects from the NIH, DARPA, DoD, and industry partners.
Under Rachel’s guidance, Pulse has been successfully incorporated in commercial and government-funded products and programs. The Pulse team has addressed the needs of the military for virtual medical simulation through collaborations with Exonicus to develop the Trauma Simulator and SimQuest and BioMojo to contribute to the Modeling and Simulation Training Architecture. They have also collaborated with academic and clinical institutions to test medical device algorithms with a closed-loop physiology management system. Kitware funded a project using Pulse to study the use of ventilators for multi-patient treatment in the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. Current projects include hemorrhage and fluid resuscitation modeling, ECMO modeling, synthetic data generation, and developing triage recommendations using large language models.
Rachel’s graduate work focused on the development of dynamic boundary conditions for use in finite element analysis and computational fluid dynamics. The boundary conditions developed were used to predict the effects of respiration on the pulmonary vasculature. She also developed a benchtop apparatus to perfuse and ventilate excised lamb lungs to collect hemodynamic and respiratory data for validation of the dynamic boundary conditions.
Rachel received her Ph.D. and master’s degree in biomedical engineering from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and North Carolina State University. She received her bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Clemson University.
Academic Lightning Speakers
David Cappelleri, PhD
Assistant Vice President for Research Innovation B.F.S. Schaefer Scholar & Professor Professor Purdue UniversityDavid J. Cappelleri is the Assistant Vice President for Research Innovation in the Office of Research, B.F.S. Schaefer Scholar & Professor in the School of Mechanical Engineering, and Professor in the Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering (by courtesy) at Purdue University. Prof. Cappelleri founded the Multi-Scale Robotics & Automation Lab (MSRAL) that performs cutting-edge research on robotic and automation systems at various length scales. His research interests include mobile microrobotics for biomedical and manufacturing applications, surgical robotics, automated manipulation and assembly, and agricultural robotics. Prof. Cappelleri is the Purdue site director for the NSF Engineering Research Center on the Internet of Things for Precision Agriculture (IoT4Ag). Prof. Cappelleri has received various awards, such as the NSF CAREER Award, Harvey N. Davis Distinguished Assistant Professor Teaching Award, the Association for Lab Automation Young Scientist Award, and is Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME). He received a Batchelor of Mechanical Engineering degree from Villanova University, a MS in Mechanical Engineering degree from The Pennsylvania State University, and a PhD degree in Mechanical Engineering & Applied Mechanics from the University of Pennsylvania.
Andrew Gonzalez, MD, PhD
Assistant Professor of Surgery Associate Director for Data Science and Research Scientist, Center for Health Services Research, Regenstrief Institute Indiana UniversityAndrew A. Gonzalez, MD JD MPH is an Assistant Professor of Vascular Surgery at the Indiana University School of Medicine and Associate Director for Data Science at the Center for Health Services Research at the Regenstrief Institute. Currently, his focus is using AI/ML to provide “the right information, at the right time, in the right format” to assist front line providers in making challenging decisions. Dr. Gonzalez served as the National Academy of Medicine Omenn Fellow (2021-23) and as a Diagnostic Excellence Scholar (2024-25). He is currently funded by the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute to develop “An intelligent clinical decision support system for peripheral arterial disease” (K23-HL-181388) and by the NIH CLINAQ initiative for “Adaptive Multimodal Benchmarking of Information and Knowledge Algorithms for Data Integration and Decision Intelligence” (Grant number 1OT2OD032581).
Dimitrios Stefanidis, MD, PhD
Harris B. Shumacker Jr. M.D. Professor of Surgery Director, MIS/Bariatric Surgery Director, Department of Surgery Skills Lab Indiana UniversityDenny Yu, PhD
Associate Professor Purdue University Adjunct Associate Professor Surgery, IU School of MedicineDenny Yu, PhD, CPE is an Associate Professor of Industrial Engineering at Purdue University and an Adjunct Associate Professor of Surgery at Indiana University School of Medicine. He was previously a Fulbright Scholar (2023-2024) and a 2017-2023 Summer Faculty Fellow at the Air Force Research Laboratory’s 711th Human Performance Wing. He also serves on the board of directors for the Board of Certification in Professional Ergonomics, Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers Work Systems Division, and the Foundation for Professional Ergonomics.
Dr. Denny Yu’s research focus on human factors engineering in the area of biobehavioral sensing techniques for human state modeling in high-stress, dynamic healthcare environments. His contributions include: 1) Objective and automated biobehavioral models for assessing physical capability, cognitive states, and team non-technical skills and 2) Real-time, user cognitive state-aware systems for enhancing human performance in high-workload environments. In conducting this work, his team has received the RSJ/KROS Distinguished Interdisciplinary Research Award (RO-MAN 2021), the 2021 Human Factors Prize (by the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society), the Young Investigator Award from the Applied Ergonomics Society, 2023 IEA/Tsinghua Award for Collaborative Human Factors and Ergonomics Education, the 2024 International Ergonomics Association’s (IEA) Outstanding Educator Award, and the Fulbright Scholar award.