Gregory D. Hager

About

Gregory D. Hager is a pioneering researcher whose work bridges computer vision, robotics, and surgical intelligence. His foundational 1996 tutorial on visual servo control — now cited nearly 3,500 times — established the conceptual framework for an entire generation of vision-guided robotic systems, making it one of the most influential references in robotics literature. His early contributions to real-time robot localization and stereo vision-based hand-eye coordination further cemented his role in shaping modern robot perception. Hager's research took a transformative turn toward surgical robotics and medical applications, where he developed groundbreaking methods for automated surgical skill evaluation, gesture segmentation, and augmented reality guidance during minimally invasive procedures. His JIGSAWS dataset became a community benchmark for surgical activity recognition, catalyzing reproducible research across the field. Parallel contributions to deep learning — notably Temporal Convolutional Networks for action segmentation, cited over 2,000 times — demonstrate his ability to translate fundamental computer science advances into real-world clinical and robotic impact. Across more than three decades, Hager has shaped how intelligent systems perceive, assist, and evaluate human performance, with particular lasting influence on the future of computer-assisted surgery and human-robot collaboration.

Research Focus

Key Achievements

Top Papers

1. 1
   A tutorial on visual servo control

   3,499 citations · 1996
2. 2
   Temporal Convolutional Networks for Action Segmentation and Detection

   2,028 citations · 2017
3. 3
   A Dataset and Benchmarks for Segmentation and Recognition of Gestures in Robotic Surgery

   288 citations · 2017
4. 4
   Augmented Reality During Robot-assisted Laparoscopic Partial Nephrectomy: Toward Real-Time 3D-CT to Stereoscopic Video Registration

   279 citations · 2009
5. 5
   Vision-Assisted Control for Manipulation Using Virtual Fixtures

   260 citations · 2004
6. 6
   Segmental Spatiotemporal CNNs for Fine-Grained Action Segmentation

   248 citations · 2016
7. 7
   Towards automatic skill evaluation: Detection and segmentation of robot-assisted surgical motions

   245 citations · 2006
8. 8
   Review of methods for objective surgical skill evaluation

   240 citations · 2010
9. 9
   Real-time vision-based robot localization

   187 citations · 1993
10. 10
    Robot hand-eye coordination based on stereo vision

    174 citations · 1995

Key Collaborators

Contact & Links