Melissa Zavaglia

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About

Melissa Zavaglia is a rising researcher at the intersection of robotics, neuroscience, and artificial intelligence, whose work pushes the boundaries of how machines interact with the physical and biological world. Her primary research areas include dexterous robotic manipulation, neural object representation, and the automation of non-invasive brain stimulation. Zavaglia’s most notable contribution is her pioneering work on anthropomorphic grasping, where she developed a framework that combines neural object shape completion with robotic control, enabling robots to handle objects with human-like dexterity. This work, published in 2023, has already garnered 15 citations, signaling its growing influence in the field of robotic manipulation. In a bold move toward clinical integration, Zavaglia also introduced a Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) Robotic Assistant, designed to fully automate the coil positioning process during brain stimulation sessions—a task traditionally requiring manual, repetitive adjustments. With TMS sessions averaging 30 minutes, her innovation promises to reduce operator fatigue and improve treatment consistency. Though early in her career, Zavaglia’s dual focus on embodied intelligence and medical robotics positions her as a compelling voice in the future of human-robot collaboration and therapeutic automation.