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've also held research positions 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.