Sadra Zargarzadeh

M.Sc. in Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Alberta

I am an M.Sc. candidate at the University of Alberta advised by Prof. Mahdi Tavakoli, where I work on multimodal foundation models and surgical robot learning. My research aims to build intelligent robotic systems that can perceive, reason, and act safely in medical environments.

I have also conducted research at the Vector Institute, ETH Zurich (Soft Robotics Lab), and EPFL (CREATE Lab) through competitive fellowships and internships, working on surgical and soft robotic systems. I received my B.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering from Sharif University of Technology.

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          C.R. James Award for Best Master’s Thesis in ECE, University of Alberta (2025)
          
          Research Fellowships at 
          Vector Institute (2025), 
          ETH Zurich (2024), and 
          EPFL (2023).

News

04-2026 Our paper "Speak2Move", has been accepted to IEEE BioRob 2026! (Edmonton, Canada)

01-2026 Our paper "SurgiDiff", has been accepted to IEEE ISMR 2026! (Knoxville, USA)

10-2025 I presented our RA-L paper at IEEE IROS 2025! (Hangzhou, China)
Awarded Best Oral Presentation Award at the Workshop on Soft Tissue Manipulation in Robotic Surgery at IEEE IROS 2025!

06-2025 I successfuly defended my M.Sc. Thesis! Awarded C.R. James Best Thesis Award in ECE, University of Alberta!

Selected Publications

From Decision to Action in Surgical Autonomy: Multi-Modal Large Language Models for Robot-Assisted Blood Suction

Sadra Zargarzadeh, M. Mirzaei, Y. Ou, M. Tavakoli

IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters (RA-L), 2025

paper project page video

Enhanced Reasoning and Task Planning for Surgical Autonomy Using Multi-Modal Large Language Models With Gradual Learning

Sadra Zargarzadeh, J. Okanlawon, M. Mirzaei, M. Mohammadi, M. Tavakoli

Journal of Biomimetics, Intelligence and Robotics, 2025 (Editor's Choice Paper)

paper video

Speak2Move: A Vision-Language-Based Semantic Mapping Framework for Autonomous Navigation in Assistive Robots

Sadra Zargarzadeh*, A. Siegers*, M. Tavakoli

IEEE International Conference on Biomedical Robotics and Biomechatronics (BioRob), 2026

paper (coming soon)

SurgiDiff: A Context-Aware Diffusion Recommender for Safe Surgical Autonomy

B. Azad*, Sadra Zargarzadeh*, F. Rudzicz

IEEE International Symposium on Medical Robotics (ISMR), 2026

paper (coming soon)

Academic Service & Teaching

Academic Service

Reviewer for IEEE RA-L, ICRA, IROS, and ISMR.
Co-organized the Robotics and Intelligent Systems Expo (RISEx), 2025.
Presented research demos at Robotics and Intelligent Systems Expo (RISEx), Inventures Canada, and Alberta AI+Health Hub.
Contributed to major research grant proposals (NFRF, NSERC CREATE, CFI, Amazon Research Awards).

Teaching

Teaching Assistant, University of Alberta:
Medical Robotics, Linear Algebra, Engineering Mechanics, Calculus I and II.
Teaching Assistant, Sharif University of Technology:
Robotics, Dynamics of Machinery, Machine Elements Design, Engineering Graphics.
Supervised 8 undergraduate researchers and interns on robotics and machine learning projects.