Franziska Mathis-Ullrich is professor for surgical robotics at the Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nuremberg (FAU) at the Dep. Artificial Intelligence in Biomedical Engineering, where she leads the Surgical Planning and Robotic Cognition Lab (SPARC).

Before joining FAU in 2023, she was assistant professor at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) since 2019. Her primary research focus is on minimally invasive and cognition controlled robotic systems and embedded machine learning with emphasis on applications in surgery. She received her B.Sc. and MSc degrees in mechanical engineering and robotics in 2009 and 2012 from ETH Zurich, respectively. In 2017, she obtained her Ph.D. in Microrobotics from ETH Zurich.

Prof. Mathis-Ullrich is vice-president of the German Society for Computer- and Robot-assisted Surgery  (CURAC) and has received numerous international awards, such as the IEEE ICRA Best Paper Award in Medical Robotics (2014), the IEEE BioRob Best Student Paper Award (2016) and she won twice with her team the first prize of the ICRA Microassembly Challenge (2014 & 2015). Furthermore, she made it onto the prestigious Forbes “30 under 30” list (2017).

Research interests