Mohsen Shahinpoor is the Richard C. Hill Professor and Chair at the University of Maine, Department of Mechanical Engineering, where he also serves as the director of Biomedical Engineering and Advanced Robotic Surgery laboratories. He is also a professor of biomedical science and engineering at the Graduate School of Biomedical Science and Engineering at the University of Maine. Prof. Shahinpoor is internationally known for his work on smart materials and artificial muscles as well as smart medical devices, implants, and non-invasive surgery. He is the first author to introduce smart materials and artificial muscles for haptic feedback in robotic surgery in a first textbook on robotic surgery. His research has been featured in numerous reports in the popular media. He has served on the editorial board of over 18 research journals and has authored over 670 research publications.

He is a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, Fellow of the Institute of Physics, and a member of the New York Academy of Sciences. Siavash Gheshmi is a biomedical engineer, inventor, and engineering consultant who has been serving the robotics, medical devices, life sciences, and biotechnology industries for years. He earned his M.Sc. in mechanical engineering from the University of Maine in 2012. His efforts in different engineering capacities have resulted in publications, intellectual properties, and more. Gheshmi¿s desire to simultaneously work in the fields of both medical devices and robotics was his incentive to enter the field of robotic surgery. As a research assistant at the University of Maine, he has developed and fabricated robotic surgical systems.