New faculty member Joanna Bertram brings interdisciplinary, fine-movement robotics research to Pratt.
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Focusing Mechatronics on Medicine
Professor Joanna Bertram joined the Thomas Lord Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science (MEMS) this past winter, bringing her expertise in the field of medical robotics.
Professor Bertram entered college at Georgia Tech with the intention of studying medicine, following her father, a pulmonary and critical care physician. As she pursued her degree in biomedical engineering, she soon realized that her interests lay more in “engineering type of work and problem solving,” though her focus remained on issues of human health and medicine. She recalls, “I loved working with math, and I loved working with my hands.” Professor Bertram continued her studies at Georgia Tech, pursuing a master’s degree in mechanical engineering and a PhD in robotics before coming to Duke in December.
Professor Bertram’s research focuses on developing fine-motion control for surgical robots.
Her recent work involved developing robotic guidewires for minimally invasive surgeries. Guidewires are used as temporary pathways for needles, tubes, and other instruments to access various parts of the body. Physicians must currently use a series of X-rays to identify the location of a guidewire within the body. Bertram worked on a novel force-sensing system that would allow surgeons to navigate these guidewires more accurately without the need for excessive X-rays, improving the precision and safety of these procedures. Incorporating aspects of electrical, mechanical, and biomedical engineering, Bertram’s design fit the sensor within a tube less than a millimeter in diameter while maintaining the flexibility of a traditional guidewire.
“To me, that brings in a lot of robotics,” she explains. “It’s the marrying between physical and digital and programming and mechanical systems and putting them all together.”
It’s the marrying between physical and digital and programming and mechanical systems and putting them all together.
Joanna BertramAssistant Professor in the Thomas Lord Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science
As she establishes her lab at Duke, Professor Bertram is excited to work with clinicians at Duke Hospital to create robotic solutions for minimally invasive surgeries. She hopes to develop new procedures for treating conditions like peripheral artery disease and cerebral aneurysms. Much like her past projects, Bertram sees interdisciplinary collaboration as a cornerstone of her work.
“I want to see the operations and have my students see the operations. I want the clinicians to be in our lab or for us to bring our technology to them to test it and get their feedback,” she explains.
When she’s not in the lab, Bertram loves to hike and is a dedicated practitioner of martial arts, specifically Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.
Siddharth Kini is a first-year engineering student.
Exploring Robotics at Duke
Students who are interested in exploring mechatronics can choose to pursue the new Robotics and Automation Undergraduate Certificate. The certificate includes courses like Medical Robotics and Surgical Technologies, Robot Learning, and Rainforest Engineering. With a focus on integrating robotics into human society, the Certificate prepares students for graduate programs and roles in industry with a strong foundation of both technical skills and ethics.
A number of student groups within Pratt also focus on robotics and offer students the chance to apply their skills outside of the classroom. Duke Combat Robotics challenges teams of engineers to build durable robots that battle it out while applying the iterative design process. The Duke Robotics Club competes annually in the international RoboSub Competition, where teams of undergraduate students design an autonomous submarine to complete tasks ranging from navigating to buoys to detecting underwater pingers.
