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Lab News

June 3, 2022: Jake Abbott (PI) and Tucker Hermans (co-PI) were awarded a National Science Foundation grant "Dexterous Magnetic Manipulation of Non-Magnetic Objects with Stationary Electromagnetic Dipole-Field Sources". $554,285. 5/15/2022-4/30/2025.

March 3, 2022: Lan Pham was awarded the College of Engineering’s Dissertation of the Year award for 2021. Congratulations!

November 18, 2021: Jordan Christensen successfully defended his thesis. Congratulations Jordan!

October 1, 2021: Ruisi Zhang was named the Outstanding Graduate Student Researcher in Robotics for the academic year 2020-2021 by the Department of Mechanical Engineering. Congratulations!

September 15, 2021: David Usevitch successfully defended his dissertation. Nice job Dr. Usevitch! Enjoy your postdoc at Johns Hopkins.

May 14, 2021: Lan Pham and Ashkan Pourkand both successfully defended their dissertations today. Two in one day: that's a lab first. Congratulations to both of you! You should both be very proud.

October 12, 2020: Ruisi Zhang successfully defended her dissertation. What a nice body of work Dr. Zhang!

July 1, 2020: Lab Director Jake Abbott was promoted to the rank of Professor.

June 5, 2020: Jake Abbott received a Distinguished Service Award from IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters as an Outstanding Reviewer for the period 2015-2019. The award was presented at ICRA 2020.

April 23, 2020: Cameron Hendricks successfully defended his thesis. Congratulations Cam!

April 20, 2020: Our paper "Dimensional Reduction for 6D Vibrotactile Display" was selected as a finalist for the Best ToH Short Paper Award at the 2020 IEEE Haptics Symposium. Nice work Ruisi and Trevor!

May 2, 2019: Jacob Aman successfully defended his thesis. Nice work Jacob!

September 24, 2018: Our research on magnetic capsule endoscopy was featured in PC Magazine.

September 5, 2018: Jake Abbott (PI), Yong Lin Kong (co-PI), Kam Leang (co-PI), On Shun Pak (co-PI), and Rajesh Rajamani (co-PI) were awarded a National Science Foundation grant "EFRI C3 SoRo: Magneto-electroactive Soft, Continuum, Compliant, Configurable (MESo-C3) Robots for Medical Applications Across Scales". $1,999,910. 9/15/2018-9/14/2022.

August 1, 2018: Colton Thornley successfully defended his thesis. Congratulations!

July 31, 2018: Jake Abbott (PI) and Tucker Hermans (co-PI) were awarded a National Science Foundation grant "EAGER: Toward Magnetic Manipulation of Nonmagnetic Objects". $248,739. 9/1/2018-8/31/2020.

September 14, 2017: Jake Abbott has been elevated to the grade of IEEE Senior Member.

July 5, 2017: Babak Hejrati has accepted an offer to join the faculty of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Maine. Congratulations Babak!

June 1, 2017: Our paper "First Demonstration of Simultaneous Localization and Propulsion of a Magnetic Capsule in a Lumen Using a Single Rotating Magnet" won the Best Paper Award in Medical Robotics at the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation in Singapore!


Jake Abbott, Katie Popek, and Martin Buss (Awards Chair)

April 24, 2017: Lisandro Leon successfully defended his dissertation. Congratulations Dr. Leon!

April 6, 2017: Our paper "First Demonstration of Simultaneous Localization and Propulsion of a Magnetic Capsule in a Lumen Using a Single Rotating Magnet" has been selected as a finalist for the Best Medical Robotics Paper Award at the upcoming IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation. Congratulations to Katie Popek and the other authors!

February 21, 2017: Jake Abbott (PI) and colleagues at the Moran Eye Center were awarded a National Institutes of Health (NEI) grant "Quantifying the Benefits of Head-mounting in Telemanipulated Robotic Eye Surgery." $384,707. 3/1/2017-2/28/2019.

February 10, 2017: Katie Popek successfully defended her dissertation. Congratulations Dr. Popek! Katie will be joining the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab next month.

May 11, 2016: Babak Hejrati has accepted a position as a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard. He will be joining Conor Walsh's lab in June.

April 13, 2016: Andrew Petruska has accepted an offer to join the faculty of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the Colorado School of Mines. Congratulations Andrew! He and his wife are very excited to start their new life in Colorado.

March 30, 2016: Babak Hejrati successfully defended his Ph.D. dissertation. You should be very proud Dr. Hejrati! You did a lot of nice work.

July 22, 2015: Manikantan Nambi successfully defended his Ph.D. dissertation. Congratulations Dr. Nambi! Great job!

April 12, 2015: Our paper "First Demonstration of a Modular and Reconfigurable Magnetic-Manipulation System" is a finalist for the Best Robotic Manipulation Paper Award and for the Best Paper Award at this year's IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation.

January 7, 2015: Matt Cavilla and Mike Doran successfully defended their joint M.S. thesis. Great job guys!

December 13, 2014: Lisandro Leon was awarded Second Place in the Poster Session at the 14th Symposium on Cochlear Implants in Children, held in Nashville, for his poster "Magnetic Guidance of a Cochlear Implant Electrode Reduces Insertion Forces In Vitro." Nice work Lisandro!

August 18, 2014: Owen Barnes successfully defended his M.S. thesis. Congratulations Owen!

August 15, 2014: Sam Wright successfully defended his M.S. thesis. Great job Sam!

July 30, 2014: Jake Abbott (PI) and David Johnson (co-PI) were awarded a National Science Foundation grant "Toward a New Generation of Untethered Magnetic Haptic Interfaces". $500,000. 8/1/2014-7/31/2017.

July 28, 2014: Jake Abbott (PI), in collaboration with researchers at the University of Utah and Vanderbilt University, was awarded a National Institutes of Health (NIDCD) grant "Magnetic Guidance for Improved Cochlear-Implant Insertion." $1,842,850. 8/1/2014-7/31/2019.

July 7, 2014: Jake Abbott (PI), in collaboration with researchers at the University of Nevada, Reno, was awarded a National Science Foundation grant "Shepherding Biomedical Microswimmers Using Magnetic Fields". $230,427. 8/15/2014-8/14/2017.

July 1, 2014: Lab director Jake Abbott was promoted to the rank of Associate Professor with tenure.

April 29, 2014: Arthur Mahoney successfully defended his Ph.D. dissertation. Congratulations Dr. Mahoney! Art has already accepted a postdoctoral research position at Vanderbilt University.

April 10, 2014: Manikantan Nambi participated in two winning projects in this years Bench-2-Bedside Competition, held by the U's Center for Medical Innovation. His team won the Best Green Award for an inexpensive portable insufflator that does not require the use of CO2 tanks. His other team won the Best in Business Award for developing a business plan for a portable device for early diagnosis of diabetic retinopathy. Great job Mani!

February 28, 2014: Andrew Petruska successfully defended his Ph.D. dissertation. Congratulations Dr. Petruska! Andrew has already accepted a postdoctoral research position at ETH Zurich.

February 26, 2014: Joey Brink gave a terrific presentation at the Haptics Symposium in Houston, and our paper was awarded the Best Paper Award. Quite an honor!


Seungmoon Choi (General Chair), Marcia O'Malley (General Chair), Joey Brink, Jake Abbott, and Cagatay Basdogan (Awards Chair)


June 25, 2013: Arthur Mahoney was awarded the Best Poster Award at the Hamlyn Symposium on Medical Robotics in London. Great job Art!

May 10, 2013: Nathan Nelson, Arthur Mahoney, Andrew Petruska, and Katie Popek had a great time at the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation in Karlsruhe, Germany. Nice job to you and the rest of the University of Utah crew.

April 23, 2013: Joey Brink was selected as a 2013 NASA Space Technology Research Fellow. Congratulations Joey!

October 10, 2012: Arthur Mahoney gave a terrific presentation of his paper at the IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems in Algarve, Portugal.

August 17, 2012: Troy Arbuckle successfully defended his Masters Thesis. Good work Troy, and good luck at your new job.

August 16, 2012: Jake Abbott was awarded the Department of Mechanical Engineering Outstanding Teaching Award for the 2010-2011 school year (a year late!).

August 15, 2012: John Hollerbach and Jake Abbott were awarded a National Science Foundation grant entitled NRI-Small: Robotic Treadmill Therapy for Lower Spinal Cord Injuries. $908,999, 9/1/2012-8/30/2015.

June 18, 2012: Manikantan Nambi gave an engaging presentation of his and Auyush Damani's work at the International Symposium of Experimental Robotics in Quebec City, Canada.

May 16, 2012: Arthur Mahoney gave a great presentation of his paper at the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation in St. Paul, Minnesota.

March 2, 2012: IEEE Spectrum, Robot Sensors & Actuators Blog, Video Friday: A Robot With Bird Legs, DARPA Manipulation Demo, and Darwin-OP's Dance Moves
This blogpost features the avian-inspired graspers project.

October 4, 2011: Courtney Doyle was honored for her academic excellence by the Women in Tech Council.

September 29, 2011: Courtney Doyle, Lisandro Leon, Manikantan Nambi, and Andrew Petruska all did a great job presenting their work this week at the IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems in San Francisco. Good work everybody!

February 26, 2011: KUTV News, U: Virtual Reality Treadmill Helping Spinal Cord Injury Patients
This segment features the use of the Treadport for rehabilitation of patients with incomplete spinal-cord injuries.

December 17, 2010: James Clark successfully defended his M.S. thesis today. Congratulations James! It's been great having you in the lab, and we wish you all the best at your new position at Northrop Grumman.

July 10, 2010: Manikantan Nambi presented his poster on "Revisiting the Effect of Velocity on Human Force Control" at the EuroHaptics Conference in Amsterdam. Nice job Mani!

May 6, 2010: Arthur Mahoney presented his paper "Deformable Robot Motion Planning in a Reduced-Dimension Configuration Space" at the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation in Anchorage, Alaska. Great job Art!

May 6, 2010: The paper "OctoMag: An Electromagnetic Systems for 5-DOF Wireless Micromanipulation," presented at the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, is the winner of the Best Manipulation Paper Award. Additionally, the three-minute video submission on the project is a finalist for the Best Video Award.


Vijay Kumar (Program Chair), Bradley Kratochvil, Jake Abbott, Michael Kummer, Bradley Nelson, and Wesley Snyder (General Conference Chair)


May 6, 2010: The paper "Wireless Control of Magnetic Helical Microrobots using a Rotating-Permanent-Magnet Manipulator," presented at the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, is a finalist for the Best Medical Robotics Paper Award.

April 20, 2010: The Daily Utah Chronicle, Microrobots aid surgery
The Telerobotics Lab is featured.

March 19, 2010: Jake Abbott was awarded the National Science Foundation CAREER Award entitled CAREER: Nonuniform-Magnetic-Field Control of Medical Microrobots. $499,793, 4/1/2010-3/31/2015.

January 15, 2010: Jake Abbott interviewed on the "Science to go with the show" podcast accompanying the UEN-TV SciFi Friday movie Giant Spider Invasion.

November 12, 2009: The article "How Should Microrobots Swim?" featured on MDLinx.com

May 1, 2009: Jake Abbott interviewed on the "Science to go with the show" podcast accompanying the UEN-TV SciFi Friday movie The Phantom Creeps.

March 31, 2009: Utah Public Radio Science Questions, Robotic Surgery
Jake Abbott discusses surgical robotics.

March 2, 2009: Ars Technica, Microscopic magnetic mimic of microbial motor made
Artificial bacterial flagella featured.

March 2, 2009: The paper "Artificial Bacterial Flagella: Fabrication and Magnetic Control,", which originally appeared in Applied Physics Letters, was chosen to appear in the Virtual Journal of Nanoscale Science and Technology 19(9).

January 13, 2009: Euronews, Honey, I shrunk the Endoscopy: the wonders of micro-medicine
The swallowable modular robot project ARES, intraocular microrobots, and helical-propeller microrobots are featured.

December 5, 2008: Nouvo, Chérie, j'ai rétréci le médecin!
The swallowable modular robot project ARES, intraocular microrobots, and helical-propeller microrobots are featured on Swiss TV.

December 1, 2008: Science Daily, A Surgeon You Can Swallow
The swallowable modular robot project ARES is featured.

October 21, 2008: The paper "On Imaging and Localizing Untethered Intraocular Devices with a Stationary Camera," presented at the IEEE International Conference on Biomedical Robotics and Biomechatronics, is a finalist for both the Best Paper Award and the Best Student Paper Award.

September 22, 2008: Technology Review, Building a Self-Assembling Stomach-Bot
The swallowable modular robot project ARES is featured.

September 4, 2008: The Economist, Swallow the surgeon
Jake Abbott discusses intraocular microrobots. The swallowable modular robot project ARES is also featured.

August 17, 2008: BBC News Click, Looking ahead to tiny technology
Intraocular microrobots and helical-propeller microrobots featured.

Page last modified on June 21, 2022, at 06:02 PM