Au, Samuel

Samuel Au received the B.Eng. and M.Phil degrees in Mechanical and Automation Engineering from the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China in 1997 and 1999, respectively. He completed his Ph.D. degree in Mechanical Engineering at MIT, USA, in 2007.  During his PhD study, he and Prof. Hugh Herr invented and developed the robotic ankle-foot prosthesis, which mimics the action of a biological ankle and, for the first time, provides transtibial amputees with a natural gait, was named one of TIME magazine’s Best Invention of Year in 2007.  The prosthesis was commercialized by iWalk, Inc (now is called BiOM, Inc) and now is commercially available in the market.In 2008, Dr. Au joined Intuitive Surgical, Inc as a Systems Analyst, focusing on the development of the next generation surgical robotic platform.  At Intuitive Surgical, he co-invented and developed the FDA Approved daVinciSingleSite surgical platform, which enables the operation of the single incision surgery under the daVinci surgical system.  He now leads the software and control development for the SingleSite product line to support the growth and future development of the product.  Dr. Au is the author and co-author of over 30 peer-reviewed manuscripts, conference journals, and patents.