About

Hello! I'm a Mechanical Engineering PhD student in the Human-Enabled Robotic Technology (HeRo) Lab, where I am fortunate to be advised by the amazing Ann Majewicz Fey. I am currently interested in robotic fetal surgery and semi-autonomous control in surgical robotics. I am grateful to have my research supported by a Cockrell School of Engineering Fellowship.

I completed my undergraduate degree in Computer Engineering at The University of Texas at Dallas (UTD), where I did research in robotic surgery, created a solar-powered IoT pool sensor, and developed an indoor navigation system for the UTD campus. During this time, I was extremely thankful to be advised by Ann Majewicz Fey (now at UT!), Neal Skinner, and Ravi Prakash.

Publications

Published

• A Comparative Human-Centric Analysis of Virtual Reality and Dry Lab Training Tasks on the da Vinci Surgical Platform
  Ziheng Wang, Michael Kasman (Co-First Author),Marco Martinez, Robert Rege, Herbert Zeh, Daniel Scott, and Ann Majewicz Fey.
  Journal of Medical Robotics Research (JMMR), Vol. 4, Nos. 3&4, July 2020.
  [Link] [Poster] [Award] [Certificate]
  
• Moving Past Principal Component Analysis: Nonlinear Dimensionality Reduction Towards Better Hand Pose Synthesis
  Edoardo Battaglia, Michael Kasman, and Ann Majewicz Fey.
  International Symposium on Medical Robotics (ISMR) 2022.
  [Link]
  

In Preparation

• An Automatic Video-based Deep Learning Approach to Robotic Surgical Tool Pose Estimation and Gesture Recognition for Surgical Skill Assessment
  Michael Kasman, Andrew Jamieson, and Ann Majewicz Fey.
  

Student Activities

I became the Philanthropy & Outreach Coordinator of the new Texas Robotics Graduate Students (TRGS) organization. So far, I have hosted tours of the UT robotics labs at Anna Hiss Gymanasium with undergraduate STEM organizations such as IEEE-RAS and organized outreach events with high school robotics teams.

Next, I plan to promote and help faciliate undergraduate research with Texas Robotics, and establish a scholarship fund for prospective UT computer science and engineering undergraduates from low socioeconomic backgrounds.

Technical Skills

Fun

Whenever I'm free, I spend time weight lifting, practicing kendo, and going sailing.

You cannot change your fate. However, you can rise to meet it, if you so choose.

-Princess Mononoke (1997)