Chances for Stanford/JHU/CMU, and what should I apply for?

[medrobotics]

Hi Everyone,

 

I am new to these forums, so bear with me if this post is in the wrong section!  I will be applying for a PhD program, to the universities listed above, this fall to start in 2015 fall next year.

 

I currently have a Master's in BME, from the University of Toronto, in Toronto, Canada.  My master's GPA was 4.0, and my undergrad GPA was pretty abysmal (3.1).   I haven't finished writing my GREs yet, but Im probably going to get around 165+ in quant, and hopefully 155+ in verbal.  I am currently a lead robotics engineer at a medical device company, designing neurosurgical robots, called IMRIS, based in Minneapolis.

 

My interests are in medical robotics, surgical robotics, and computer integrated surgery 

 

I have a first author publication at ICRA (an international, well recognized robotics conference), where I also gave an oral presentation, and two second author publications at IEEE Biomedical Transactions and SPIE.

 

I ran a surgical robotics enrichment program for high school students, which I pioneered, got funding for, and successfully ran two cohorts of, at SickKids, Toronto during my masters.

 

My interests lie in Machine Learning, Computer Vision, and adapting these for robotic applications in surgery.  Im not sure which department to apply to, and which would help address my diverse and varying interests.  My background is in BME, which is already vague/multi-faceted, so not sure if continuing in this direction is the right idea for a PhD.

 

As a follow up (and my primary question), given this background, can anyone give me an idea about my chances for the universities in the title - Stanford, JHU, CMU.  Ive found a bunch of labs in these places that Id be interested in working for, but not sure if I can get in.  Ideally, at CMU, Id like to apply for the Robotics PhD program, and at JHU, for the BME program.  For Stanford, Im not sure..

 

Thanks!

Edited August 26, 2014 by medrobotics

[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.