Aimee Goncalves

University of California, Berkeley, Toyota Research Institute

Papers

Total Citations

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About

Aimee Goncalves is a robotics researcher whose work bridges the gap between industrial automation and surgical precision. Her primary research areas include robotic grasping, surgical robotics, and whole-body manipulation. In her most cited work, "Design of parallel-jaw gripper tip surfaces for robust grasping" (50 citations), she challenged conventional industrial gripper design by demonstrating how optimizing jaw surface geometry significantly improves grasp robustness—a fundamental contribution to manufacturing robotics. She also developed the SPRK (Stewart Platform Research Kit), a low-cost, miniaturized motion platform for surgical robotics research (24 citations), enabling realistic simulation of organ motion from breathing and heartbeats within the da Vinci Research Kit workspace. Most recently, her 2025 paper on example-guided reinforcement learning for whole-body manipulation (9 citations) explores how robots can learn to use their entire bodies—beyond just fingers—to manipulate objects, mimicking human gross motor skills. This work represents a significant step toward more versatile, human-like robotic manipulation. Goncalves’ research consistently addresses practical challenges in robotics, from factory floors to operating rooms, making her work valuable to both industrial practitioners and academic researchers.