# Zhanyue Zhao > Staff Robotics Engineer, Technical Lead of AiM Medical Robotics Location: Greater Boston, United States Profile: https://flows.cv/zhanyue Zhanyue (Jimmy) Zhao, PhD is Staff Robotics Engineer at AiM Medical Robotics Inc., he is the technical lead of the team. He has been working in the medical device area for over 8+ years with over 10+ years of hands-on experience and focused on different projects, currently, he is focusing on MRI-compatible robots and actuator development used in neurosurgery and prostate surgery in MRI. He also has a background in concentric tubing needle robots, MRI-compatible surgical robotics, and new medical devices development including gut digital health devices, cuffless blood pressure monitoring devices, EEG monitoring devices, airway stent with its implantation/removal tool and procedure development, and single molecule protein detection device. ## Work Experience ### Staff Robotics Engineer, Technical Lead @ AiM Medical Robotics Jan 2023 – Present | Worcester, Massachusetts, United States ### Research Scientist @ Worcester Polytechnic Institute Jan 2022 – Jan 2023 | Worcester, Massachusetts, United States ### Research Assistant @ WPI AIM Lab Jan 2018 – Jan 2022 | Worcester, Massachusetts MRI Robot for Precision Deep Brain Stimulation Probe Placement in Conformal Brain Tumor Therapy • Design prototype of MRI compatible concentric tubing robot and patient specific steerable needle for neurosurgery • Modify the MRI Compatible neurosurgery robot for animal survival procedure • Design and fabricate MRI compatible animal subject supporting assistant calibration device in animal surgery procedure • Funded by National Institutes of Health (NIH) under the National Cancer Institute Grant R01-CA166379; Collaborator: General Electric (GE) Global Research, Albany Medical Center and Acoustic MedSystems Inc. Modify 3D thermo-acoustic Comsol simulation of PZT transducer for interstitial ultrasound ablation using cluster calculation Customized MRI Comparable Ultrasonic Piezoelectric Actuators Development and Optimization • Modeling, design and fabricate plastic and optical MRI compatible piezoelectric motor and full-directional stack PZT motor • Develop Comsol simulation for hollow cylindrical PZT motor pattern and surface traveling wave friction-drive motor FEM • Develop and design device and experiment for surface roughness effect on motor operation • Design and develop dynamic torque measuring system platform using NI DAQ card and LabView Automated Coating of Cell Culture Surfaces with Growth Factor-releasing Polyelectrolyte Multilayers • Develop industrial scale automated coating process and device and integrated system components • Design industrial solution with system prototyping, hardware development, PLC programming and system UI design • Producing industrial scale production of chemically defined, FGF2-releasing microbead cell culture substrates • Sponsor: Advanced Regenerative Manufacturing Institute (ARMI)/BioFabUSA; Collaborator: Akron Biotech, RoosterBio and Allen-Bradley Rockwell Automation ### Research Intern @ Boston Scientific Jan 2021 – Jan 2022 | Greater Boston A robot arm assisted medical device with ureteroscopy procedure, design and prototype the attachment for robotic arm to hold ureteroscope, and its matching device method for stabilizing and feeding flexible encoscope with robotic arm. This project is to control the scope motion to map the bladder which has applications in overactive bladder and bladder cancer. ### Research Assistant @ Brigham and Women's Hospital Jan 2018 – Jan 2020 | Greater Boston Area Working for Professor Karp in Karp's Lab, leading the project of digital toilet project, focusing on designing new device to detect and monitor the stool status continuously. By building the stool log and compared to food log, it will help with IBD patients study and other bowel disease including IBS. Also this device will help pharmacy company to shrink the time period of developing new IBD drugs in clinical trials research phases. • Development of a Digital Toilet for Establishing Biomarkers to Monitor and Treat IBD • Design prototype of digital toilet and fabricate dummy toilet for experiments and data analysis to detect stool consistency • Develop Python programs to perform image recognition including shape and color detection using OpenCV • Apply IRB human experiments to set up base line of human stool consistency based on Bristol Stool Chart • Design new automatic image data collecting system used in Diaper Genie, apply IRB of neonates for system training ### Research Assistant @ Massachusetts General Hospital Jan 2017 – Jan 2018 | Charlestown, MA • Design prototype of wearable cuffless blood pressure monitoring device, improve the robustness with ergonomic principles • Design and fabricate headset model superficial temporal artery (STA) pressure monitoring structure and collect data stably ### Research Intern @ NanoMosaic Inc. Jan 2017 – Jan 2017 | Greater Boston Prototyping the NanoMosaic Tessie, the nanoneedle detection for protein and genome detection and quantification prototyping, simplify and modify the optical microscope stage structure. ### Summer Internship @ Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences Jan 2017 – Jan 2017 | Cambridge, MA Design and fabricate the cryogenic vacuum chamber with shield for extreme environment superconducting optics experiments. ### Research Assistant @ Boston Children's Hospital Jan 2017 – Jan 2017 | Greater Boston Area • Design and fabricate helical nitinol stent prototype; design special toolkits for stents implantation and retrieval • Design mathematical models to perform changes of strain and stress based on in vivo pressure variations • Lead the in vivo experiments and animal surgeries, modified existing surgical tools and devices • Funded by Bioengineering, Technology, and Surgical Sciences Study Section (BTSS), NIH Grant R21HD089136 ### Manager @ Trebupult LLC Jan 2016 – Jan 2017 | Allston, MA • Design and manufacture trebuchet • Sold it on Kickstarter, got $1390 by 39 backers • Manufacture, packaging, mailing, taxing and related company issues ### Senior Mechanical Engineer @ BrainCo_Tech Jan 2016 – Jan 2016 | Greater Boston Area • Design and fabricate the Focus 1 Brain control device prototype, 1 DOF controllable affordable robotic hand • Founder of BrainCo Robotics non-profit project, assemble full-sized robot and connect with Focus 1 brain wave control system ### Research Assistant @ Robotics lab of IIT Jan 2015 – Jan 2016 | Chicago, Illinois, United States Electrostatic/Gecko-like Adhesive Gripper for Industrial Robot Arm and Space Station Robot • Design and improve the attaching pads (core parts of robot); optimize the geometries • Experimentally characterize the normal and shear adhesion force of gripper using force sensor • Carried into the International Space Station by spacecraft Cygnus in March 2016, lifting space grade materials 60x faster than conventional suction-cup grippers • Funded by NASA SBIR Grant NNX15CP47P and NASA ESI Grant NNX16AF05G; Collaborator: Perception Robotics and Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) Miniature Electrostatic/Gecko-like Adhesives Climber • Design and fabricate the electrostatic adhesive pads, devise new fabrication technique for hybrid adhesive pads that highly improved their performance (up to 6 times higher force), robustness and reliability • Sponsor and Collaborator: Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), NASA ## Education ### Doctor of Philosophy - PhD in Mechanical Engineering & Robotics Engineering Worcester Polytechnic Institute ### Master's degree in Aerospace Material and Mechanical Engineering Illinois Institute of Technology ### Bachelor’s Degree in Electrical Mechanics Engineering University of Science and Technology Beijing ## Contact & Social - LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/zhaozhanyue --- Source: https://flows.cv/zhanyue JSON Resume: https://flows.cv/zhanyue/resume.json Last updated: 2026-03-31