ISE Seminar Series - Dr. Jackie Cha

Title: Human-Robot Collaborations in Surgery: Measuring Skills, Demands, and Safety

 Abstract: The widespread adoption of surgical robotic systems in the operating room has fundamentally reshaped how surgical team members physically and cognitively interact with both technology and one another. This shift has highlighted the need to reconsider nontechnical skills – task-relevant cognitive and interpersonal skills among surgical team members – and to reassess the physical demands placed on clinicians throughout a procedure. This presentation will describe sensor-based measures of nontechnical skills in robotic-assisted surgery, drawing on behavioral and physiological metrics collected from surgical teams to characterize communication, coordination, and workload. It will also present findings from live and simulated procedures on the physical demands of surgery, highlighting conditions in which arm- and shoulder-support exoskeletons reduce those demands for surgeons and perioperative staff. Collectively, this work is aimed at improving surgical human-robot collaborations and team dynamics to promote clinician and patient safety, surgical performance, and the overall quality of surgical care.

 Bio: Dr. Jackie Cha is the Patricia Flatley Brennan Assistant Professor in the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, with an affiliate appointment in Biomedical Engineering. Her research focuses on measuring physical and cognitive human-robot interactions, particularly in healthcare environments, to improve worker performance, safety, and system efficiency. Her group investigates applications of robotics – both surgical robotic systems and wearables – in clinical environments and the changes of physical and cognitive interactions between human teams and robots. Prior to joining UW-Madison, she served as an assistant professor at Clemson University. She obtained her PhD in Industrial Engineering from Purdue University and MSE/BSE in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Michigan. Her research has been funded by several sponsors such as the National Science Foundation (NSF) (including the NSF CAREER award), National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ).