I am an Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Louisville, where I head the HEAlthcare Robotics and Telesurgery (HEART) Laboratory. At the HeaRT lab, we work on the design, modeling, and control of surgical robots, especially miniature continuum (flexible) robotic tools.

Prior to my faculty appointment, I was a Research Fellow in Cardiac Surgery at the Harvard Medical School and Boston Children’s Hospital, where I worked with Dr. Pierre Dupont in the Pediatric Cardiac Bioengineering Lab. In Summer 2021, I graduated with a Ph.D. from the Medical Robotics and Automation Laboratory at the Georgia Institute of Technology, where I worked on Robotic Guidewires and Neuro-endoscopes.

I have been lucky to collaborate with experts at Georgia Tech in robotics, mechatronics, computer vision, modeling of mechanical systems, machine learning and haptics. I have also collaborated with interventional radiologists, radiation oncologists and neurosurgeons from the Emory Winship Cancer Institute and the Emory University Department of Neurosurgery.

Feel free to send an email to yash.chitalia[at]louisville[dot]edu for any questions about my research.

Lab Openings Announcement

I have one opening for highly motivated Ph.D. students in my research team, the HEAlthcare Robotics and Telesurgery (HeaRT) Laboratory.
The HeaRT lab is currently looking for motivated undergraduate and Masters students.
If playing with state-of-the-art 3D Printers, laser cutters, Raspberry Pi’s and NVIDIA Jetsons piques your interest, and you’d like to make a Ph.D. sized dent in the universe, we’re looking for you!

News

[11/2023] Invited speaker at University of Louisville Health - Neurosurgery.
[10/2023] Invited speaker at the Duke Medical Robotics Symposium.
[10/2023] Organized a workshop on Data vs. Model in Medical Robotics at IROS 2023.
[09/2023] Paper on Robotic Neuroendoscope published in Science Robotics! [09/2023] HeaRT Lab doctoral student, Behnam Moradkhani, presents our first conference paper at CRAS 2023, happening in Paris, France.
[06/2023] Paper on COAST robotic guidewire published in Robotics and Automation - Letters.
[05/2023] Plenary Talk at the 6th International Conference of Magnetic Surgery and Life Science (ICMS)
[04/2023] Invited speaker at the The Holistic Forum of Medical Robotics Junior Professors at ISMR 2023.
[04/2023] Presented our paper on modeling tendon-driven concentric-tube robots at ISMR 2023.
[04/2023] Invited speaker at the Wisconsin Robotics Seminar Series.
[02/2023] Received the Ralph E. Powe Junior Faculty Enhancement Award.