Max Robotics — Global Service Robot Directory + US Certification

About

Mali Shen is a prominent researcher at the intersection of surgical robotics, medical imaging, and artificial intelligence, with a particular focus on minimally invasive interventional systems. Her work spans continuum robot design, bronchoscopic navigation, and AI-driven surgical assistance — fields where precision engineering meets clinical need. Shen's most impactful contribution is her highly cited review "Application of Artificial Intelligence in Surgery" (2020, 171 citations), which has become an essential reference for understanding how AI is transforming preoperative planning, intraoperative navigation, and robotic intervention. Complementing this, her work on laser-profiled continuum robots (92 citations) demonstrated innovative approaches to simultaneous shape and tip force estimation, addressing critical challenges in navigating tortuous anatomical pathways without causing tissue damage. Her bronchoscopic research is particularly noteworthy: she has advanced both the mechanical design of endobronchial continuum robots and the computational frameworks that guide them, including generative localization methods using video-CT data and cascaded neural networks for pathological airway segmentation. Additional contributions to flexible robotic systems for endoscopic submucosal dissection and biomedical small object segmentation further illustrate the breadth of her expertise. Shen's cumulative body of work positions her as a meaningful contributor to next-generation robot-assisted surgical systems.