some_dude

Hi, I'm currently finishing my MS ME at Stanford while working in a medical robotics lab. I can't say for sure how PhD admissions work elsewhere but I would highly recommend isolating specific professors who's work interests you and reaching out to them directly. At Stanford if you already have an MS you will be considered separately and need a professor's support to get in. At Stanford the faculty that may interest you are Allison Okamura (ME) and Ken Salisbury (CS), as well as Mark Cutcosky (ME), Oussama Khatib (CS), and David Camarillo (bioengineering). You can find the work they do on their lab websites; there isn't much I know of that's directly ML or CV related but it can't hurt to look. Hopkins and CMU are obviously both top programs in this field (with too many faculty to name) - a few others worth your consideration are UW (especially Blake Hannaford), Vanderbilt (Nabil Simaan and Rob Webster), Harvard (Conor Walsh, Rob Wood, Rob Howe), Berkeley (Ken Goldberg), MIT, etc. You should also look in journals and conference proceedings and see who's doing the work you're particularly interested in. Depending on what you want to do afterwards the institution you go to for your PhD isn't nearly as important as your advisor and research.