Michael Yip, Ph.D.

Director, Advanced Robotics and Controls Laboratory Medical Robotics Collaboratory, UC San Diego

Dr. Michael Yip is the Director of the Advanced Robotics and Controls Laboratory (ARCLab) and an Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of California, San Diego. His group currently focuses on surgical robots, biomimetic design, and robot learning. His research has received several best paper awards and nominations at ICRA and IROS and RA-L, and he has been recognized by the NSF CAREER award, NIH Trailblazer award, and as a RAS Distinguished Lecturer. Several of his research has led to founded startups, and he was named the Faculty Innovator of the Year at UCSD in 2024, and elected into the National Academy of Inventors. Dr. Yip was previously a Disney Research in 2014 and Amazon Robotics in 2018. He holds a bachelor's degree in mechatronics engineering from the University of Waterloo, a master's degree. in electrical engineering from the University of British Columbia, and a Ph.D. in bioengineering from Stanford University.

Robert J. Webster, III, PhD

Ricard A. Schroeder Professor of Mechanical Engineering, Vanderbilt University

Robert J. Webster III is the Richard A. Schroeder Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Vanderbilt University. He received his B.S. in electrical engineering from Clemson University in 2002, and his M.S. and Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from the Johns Hopkins University in 2004 and 2007. In 2008, he joined the mechanical engineering faculty of Vanderbilt University, where he currently directs the Medical Engineering and Discovery Laboratory. He founded and serves on the steering committee for the Vanderbilt Institute for Surgery and Engineering, which brings together physicians and engineers to solve challenging clinical problems. He is the founder and President of Virtuoso Surgical, Inc. and EndoTheia, Inc. which are commercializing technologies invented in his laboratory, and have raised over $35M in private capital and grant funding, and received FDA Breakthrough Device designation. Prof. Webster's research interests include surgical robotics, medical device design, image-guided surgery, and continuum robotics. He is a recipient of the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society Early Career Award, the National Science Foundation CAREER award, the Robotics Science and Systems Early Career Spotlight Award, IEEE Volz award, and the award for Excellence in Teaching from Vanderbilt University. In addition to his primary appointment in Mechanical Engineering, he holds appointments at Vanderbilt in Electrical Engineering, Otolaryngology, Neurological Surgery, Urologic Surgery, and Medicine at Vanderbilt. Fifteen of his prior trainees are now in faculty positions. He directs the Mid-South REACH Hub, a large NIH entrepreneurship center, and teaches entrepreneurship at Vanderbilt, and serves as Associate Provost at Vanderbilt.

Erik Pupo

Director, Commercial Health IT Advisory, Guidehouse Insights

Erik Pupo is a Senior Executive in Guidehouse’s Commercial Healthcare segment, based out of the Miami office. Erik has over 25 years of experience in healthcare leadership roles, including vendor, industry, and advisory. He is the Director of Guidehouse’s Commercial Health IT Advisory practice in North America. He was previously the healthcare cybersecurity director at Amazon and prior to that served as the Chief Information Officer at Columbia University Medical Center. His expertise is focused on healthcare technology transformation initiatives leveraging cloud, automation, artificial intelligence, and data management to support value-based care implementation and to advise on the transition to new value-based IT operating models and strategies. Erik has worked to help clients create new IT strategy and operating models and works across healthcare startups to evaluate healthcare IT products and solutions for providers and payers. He is recognized as an industry thought leader in numerous healthcare fields, including healthcare interoperability, digital health, healthcare cloud, value-based care, health information security, and population health.

Ken Goldberg, Ph.D.

Chief Scientist, Ambi Robotics + Jacobi Robotics | William S. Floyd Jr. Distinguished Chair of Engineering, UC Berkeley

Ken Goldberg (IEEE Fellow, 2005) is William S. Floyd Distinguished Chair of Engineering at UC Berkeley and Chief Scientist of Ambi Robotics and Jacobi Robotics. Ken leads research in robotics and automation: grasping, manipulation, and learning for applications in warehouses, industry, homes, agriculture, and robot-assisted surgery. He is Professor of IEOR with appointments in EECS and Art Practice. Ken is Chair of the Berkeley AI Research (BAIR) Steering Committee (60 faculty) and is co-founder and Editor-in-Chief emeritus of the IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering (T-ASE). He has published ten US patents and over 400 refereed papers. He has presented over 600 invited lectures to academic and corporate audiences.

Danyal Fer, M.D.

General and Minimally Invasive Surgeon, David Grant Medical Center

Dr. Danyal Fer is a Major in the US Air Force and minimally invasive general surgeon practicing at David Grant Medical Center at Travis AFB. Previously, Dr. Fer served as the Lead Physician in Applied Research at Johnson & Johnson Medical Devices, where he led initiatives in robotic and AI system development for surgical applications. He was also a collaborator at the Automation Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley, where he worked on autonomous surgical systems. His work bridges military medicine, academic research, and industry innovation, with the goal of advancing the transmission of surgical knowledge and action using robotics and artificial intelligence.

David Hexner

Vice President of Research and Development, Lifeward

David Hexner joined ReWalk in November of 2011 and currently serves as Vice President of Research and Development. David has played an integral role in the development of both the ReWalk Exoskeleton and the ReStore Exo-suit, beginning first in the role of Software and Algorithms Engineer, then that of Program Manager and finally of Director of Research and Development prior to joining the management team in 2021. Mr. Hexner received his Bachelor’s Degree in Electrical Engineering, as well as his Masters of Business Administration from the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology. Prior to joining ReWalk, David previously worked at Zoran Electronics which used to be a leading player in the semiconductor market which developed and sold chip sets for consumer electronics.

Erik Barnett

Partner - Healthcare, Guidehouse Insights

Erik Barnett serves as Partner, Healthcare, for Guidehouse Insights. He spearheads initiatives across the firm’s commercial Health practice to help healthcare leaders transform the consumer and employee experience and drive growth through the use of AI and GenAI. Barnett brings more than two decades of experience as both a clinician and business leader, which he uses to inform AI data strategy, develop centers of excellence, and integrate next-generation technologies into client engagements.