Professor Sanja Dogramadzi from Bristol Robotics Laboratory (BRL) was recently named in RoboHub’s ‘top 25 women in robotics you need to know about’ list and when you consider her work in assistive medical robots, the accolade comes as no surprise.
“I am really glad I am in the company of all these other successful women in robotics”
Sanja made it into the national press and spoke at TEDxUWE when she and Professor Roger Atkins from University Hospitals Bristol developed what was believed to be the first robot-assisted system to tackle the problem of complex bone joint fractures.
Robot-assisted surgery: Hear from Sanja and Roger on
how the assistive robots work to mend complex joint fractures
Sanja has been awarded funding in excess of £2.5 million since 2009 and is currently supervising and managing a team of 15 post-doctoral and doctoral researchers and junior lecturers.
This is a team that has also won ‘Best Medical Paper Award’ at the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA 2016), one of the world’s largest robotics conferences with some 2,500 delegates, held in Stockholm earlier this year.
“The thing that interested me most about studying medical and assistive robotics in particular, was the prospect that it can improve society”
Wanting to know more about Sanja’s achievements, how it feels to be on the RoboHub list and how she got into robotics, we caught up with her to find out more.
She tells us: “I have been honoured and genuinely surprised to find myself on RoboHub’s list. I didn’t expect to find my picture there but I am really glad I am in the company of all these other successful women in robotics.”
Robotics at TEDxUWE: Sanja talks about the past, present
and future for surgical robots
She tells us: “I got into robotics during my PhD. Its multidisciplinary aspects were most appealing, especially in the area of robotics applied to healthcare.
“Robotics is a great vehicle for attracting people to STEM subjects”
“The thing that interested me most about studying medical and assistive robotics in particular, was the prospect that it can improve society and help move boundaries in different aspects of life and when we need it the most.”
Future of robotics
There are high hopes for robotics in the South West – Bristol is already well known for its innovation in this area and Sanja is one of many whose inspiring achievements are paving the way to encourage even more talent into the region. She adds: “Robotics is a great vehicle for attracting people to STEM subjects and we have an increasing number of young women joining our courses and research at Bristol Robotics Laboratory at UWE.”
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And, ever modest about her achievements to date, Sanja tells us: “Although I think I have made good progress with robot-assisted fracture surgery, I think my biggest achievement in robotics is yet to come because I think it should be something really big.
“I admire my colleagues in the lab who work relentlessly and passionately to put BRL, UWE and the South West on the robotics world map.”
Many thanks to Sanja for chatting to us about her work at the BRL. Click here for the full list of RoboHub’s women in robotics you need to know about.
You can find out more about research carried out at the BRL by checking out the BRL website. You can also follow them on Twitter: @BristolRobotLab.
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Shona Wright
Shona covers all things editorial at TechSPARK. She publishes news articles, interviews and features about our fantastic tech and digital ecosystem, working with startups and scaleups to spread the word about the cool things they're up to.
She also oversees TechSPARK's social media, sharing the latest updates on everything from investment news to green tech meetups and inspirational stories.
