Shorya Awtar, Sc.D. is an Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor and the Founder and Chief Technology Officer of FlexDex Surgical. He earned his engineering degrees from the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur (B.Tech., 1998), Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (M.S., 2000), and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Sc.D., 2004). His research interests include machine design, flexure mechanisms, parallel kinematics, mechatronic systems, and precision engineering. Application areas include medical devices for minimally invasive surgery, motion stages for metrology and manufacturing, electromagnetic and electrostatic actuators, and microsystems. He worked at the National Institute of Standards and Technology and GE Global Research prior to joining the University of Michigan.