surgical-robotics
(5)
Gregory Fischer
Gregory Fischer is the co-founder and CEO of AiM Medical Robotics, a Worcester, Massachusetts company building a portable, MRI-compatible surgical robot for neurosurgery. A robotics engineer with a PhD from Johns Hopkins, Fischer spent nearly two decades as a professor at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, where he directed the Automation and Interventional Medicine (AIM) Robotics Lab and founded the PracticePoint medtech R&D center. He turned his NIH-funded research into a company aiming to bring real-time image guidance and submillimeter robotic precision into the operating room, with a first-in-human clinical study on the horizon after a $8.1 million Series A in 2025.
Manisha Shah-Bugaj
Manisha Shah-Bugaj is the CEO of Activ Surgical, a Boston-based medical technology company building hardware-agnostic surgical software and its ActivSight Intelligent Light imaging module. A medtech executive with more than two decades of experience, she previously built Olympus's U.S. gynecology business from the ground up, rising to General Manager and Global Vice President, before joining Activ Surgical as COO in January 2022 and becoming CEO that December.
Brian Miller
Brian Miller is the CEO of Sovato, the Santa Barbara company building the first platform to let health systems deploy and scale remote robotic surgery. An electrical engineer turned roboticist with a PhD from Northwestern in haptics, he spent his first job at Computer Motion writing software for the AESOP and ZEUS robots and watched the 2001 Operation Lindbergh, the first transatlantic remote surgery. Twenty-three years at Intuitive Surgical followed, where he rose from control-systems analyst to Chief Digital Officer and Head of Digital and AI Strategy. In April 2026 he returned to the frontier he started on, taking Sovato from early market development toward its first patient programs in 2027.
Maggie Nixon
Maggie Nixon is the CEO of Capstan Medical, a Santa Cruz medtech startup building a robotic platform and catheter-delivered implants for minimally invasive mitral and tricuspid heart valve replacement. A nationally ranked high-school shot put and discus thrower, she earned a Stanford athletic scholarship, designed her own biomechanical engineering major, and then spent more than two decades at Intuitive Surgical across instrument design, clinical development, quality and regulatory, and China operations and strategy. In 2022 she reunited with her first Intuitive boss, Dan Wallace, to lead Capstan, where in 2025 her team completed the world's first robotic catheter mitral valve replacements in humans after raising a $110M Series C.
Paxton Maeder-York
Paxton Maeder-York is the founder of Alife Health, an AI platform for IVF clinics that has raised $31.5M and raised the standard for data-driven fertility care. A Harvard-trained biomedical engineer and MBA, he previously helped build surgical robotics at Auris Health (acquired by J&J for $3.4B) and worked in product at Google X. In 2020, driven in part by the fact that his younger brother is an IVF baby, he founded Alife to apply machine learning to embryo selection, hormone dosing, and lab scheduling. By 2024 the company had launched five products, earned recognition from Fast Company and the World Economic Forum, and achieved a leadership transition - Paxton stepping into a board role as Melissa Teran took the CEO seat.