Jaydev Desai, Ph.D., is joining the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory this summer (2016) as Professor of Biomedical Engineering with the title of “BME Distinguished Faculty Fellow." His research interests include image-guided surgical robotics, reality-based soft-tissue modeling for surgical simulation, grasping, haptics, and micro-scale cell and tissue characterization.

He is currently a professor and director of the Robotics, Automation, and Medical Systems (RAMS) Laboratory in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Maryland, College Park (UMCP). Prior to joining UMCP, he was an associate professor at Drexel University. He was a post-doctoral fellow in the Division of Engineering and Applied Sciences at Harvard University from 1998 to 1999.

He is a recipient several NIH R01 awards, NSF CAREER award, and also the lead inventor on the “Outstanding Invention of 2007 in Physical Science Category” at UMCP. He is a recipient of the Ralph R. Teetor Educational Award. In 2011, he was an invited speaker at the National Academy of Sciences “Distinctive Voices” seminar series on the topic of “Robot-Assisted Neurosurgery” at the Beckman Center. He was also invited to attend the National Academy of Engineering’s 2011 U.S. Frontiers of Engineering Symposium. He is the founding Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Medical Robotics Research (JMRR) and the Editor-in-Chief of the forthcoming multi-volume major reference work, tentatively entitled: Encyclopedia of Medical Robotics. He is also a senior member of Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME).

Education 

• Ph.D. (Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics), University of Pennsylvania, 1998
• MA (Mathematics), University of Pennsylvania, 1997
• MSE (Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics), University of Pennsylvania, 1995
• B. Tech (Mechanical Engineering), Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, India, 1993

Honors and Awards 

• Fellow, American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME).
• Program Chair for 2019 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA)
• Founding Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Medical Robotics Research.
• Editor-in-Chief of the multi-volume Major Reference Work tentatively entitled: “Encyclopedia of Medical Robotics”.
• One of Five Faculty chosen from University of Maryland, College Park, for Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC) Academic Leadership Program (ALP) Fellow for the 2014-2015 academic year
• Invited several years to Research Leaders Luncheon at University of Maryland, College Park
• Invited to give a talk in the National Academy of Sciences “Distinctive Voices” seminar series on the topic of “Robot-Assisted Neurosurgery” at the Beckman Center
• Invited to attend National Academy of Engineering's 2011 U.S. Frontiers of Engineering Symposium
• Program Chair of Second Biennial IEEE/RAS-EMBS BioRob 2008
• Outstanding Invention of 2007 in Physical Science Category, University of Maryland, College Park: MINIR: Minimally Invasive Neurosurgical Intracranial Robot – Lead Inventor
• Ralph R. Teetor Educational Award - Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE).
• College of Engineering Outstanding Teaching Award (2004) - Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA
• Outstanding Contribution to Graduate Teaching (2004) - Mechanical Engineering and Mechanics, Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA
• National Science Foundation CAREER Award – “CAREER: Minimally Invasive Surgery using Haptics and Vision”