Research/Areas of Interest
Autonomous medical robotics, surgical robotics, medical devices, image-guided interventions, modeling and simulation, sensing, actuation and control methods, embodied artificial intelligence.
Biography
Lidia Al-Zogbi is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Tufts University. Prior to joining Tufts, she was a postdoctoral scholar in the Department of Computer Science at Vanderbilt University, where she worked on probabilistic multimodal sensor fusion for real-time perception of deformable and topologically changing surgical environments. She received her Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from Johns Hopkins University in 2025 under the supervision of Prof. Axel Krieger, and her M.S. and B.E. degrees in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Maryland and the American University of Beirut, respectively. Her doctoral research focused on autonomous medical robotic systems for diagnostic and interventional applications, including ultrasound-guided robotic solutions for trauma care, and needle-tissue interaction modeling and control for prostate biopsies. Lidia was recognized as a Rising Star in Mechanical Engineering by Carnegie Mellon University in 2024, and was featured in the Microsoft Future Leaders in Robotics and AI seminar series in 2023. Her broader research aims to advance robotic technology in medicine, with a particular focus on increasing levels of autonomy. This includes designing and prototyping robotic systems with autonomy considered from the outset, as well as integrating multimodal sensing approaches to augment intraoperative perception. Lidia is also interested in developing methods that enable advanced reasoning about the surgical environment, allowing robotic systems to dynamically adapt their plans and controls toward more precise, safer, and more accessible patient care.