Keyvan Hashtrudi-Zaad received the Ph.D. degree in electrical and computer engineering from the University of British Columbia, Canada, in 2000. He then held a consulting position with Motion Metrics International Corp., Vancouver on the development of a dynamic payload monitoring system for heavy-duty hydraulic machines. In 2001, he joined the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Queen’s University, Canada, where he is currently a Professor and the Director of Interactive Robotics and Intelligent Systems (IRIS) Laboratory.
Dr. Hashtrudi-Zaad’s research interests include applications of control and intelligent systems in haptics and telerobotics, rehabilitation robotics, and autonomous driving. His research in the control of telerobotic systems is considered as seminal work in the field. Dr. Hashtrudi-Zaad is currently an Associate Editor for IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters (RA-L) and the Co-Chair of the IEEE RAS Technical Committee for Telerobotics (TCT). He has also served as an Associate Editor of IEEE Transactions on Haptics, the General Co-Chair of 2021 IEEE World Haptics Conference (WHC 2021), the Chair of IEEE WHC Steering Committee and the Associate Editor of WHC 2011-19, WHC-2023-25, and Eurohaptics 2022-26.
Dr. Hashtrudi-Zaad is the Undergraduate Program Chair of the Mechatronics and Robotics Engineering program at Smith Engineering and a Professional Engineer in the province of Ontario.
Research Interests
Prof. Hashtrudi-Zaad's research interests largely lie in the areas of haptics, biomechanics, and intelligent mechatronic systems. These include:
Reserach Laboratory: Interactive Robotics and Intelligent Systems (IRIS) Laboratory
The Interactive Robotics and Intelligent Systems (IRIS) Laboratory conducts reserach in rehabilitation robotics and telerobotics. IRIS lab is looking for a doctoral student in robotics for September 2026.
Required Expertise: Robotics, machine learning and control systems
Favored Expertise/skills: Haptics and telerobotics; Hands-on experience with mechanical and electronic hardware, as well as computing systems.
Who Can Apply: Domestic and international candidates with a master's degree in engineering (ECE, BIOMED, MECHATRONICS) and strong academic background (GPA>85%) and research track record (published work) are encouraged to apply.
The research will take place at the IRIS Laboratory and Queen's Ingenuity Lab Research Institute. The position is competitive and is funded with an annual stipend of ~C$29,000. Application is open to both international and domestic students. Priority will be given to domestic applicants. IRIS Lab is committed to employment equity, diversity, and inclusion in the workplace and encourages applications from equity deserving groups.
NOTE: This position does not apply to candidates with a Bachelor's degree. There is no direct path for the PhD program.
Haptics is robotic technology that allows users to interact with computer-generated objects through their interactions with their haptic interfaces. Applications of these systems are in robotic-based training of surgeons and dentists. Haptic interfaces are primarily actuated in direct drive or with low transmission ratio. Therefore, they often cannot output human-level forces. In addition, haptic actuators are expected to deliver high torque at low speeds, which substantially reduces their efficiency and exposes them to significant stress and wear.
In this exciting project, we plan to develop integrated mechanical/electronic hardware and software technologies to convert certain DC motors and stepper motors into haptic actuators with high output torque. The project will be co-supervised by Dr. Keyvan Hashtrudi-Zaad and Dr. Majid Pahlevani from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering of Queen's University. The research will be conducted at the Interactive Robotics and Intelligent Systems (IRIS) Laboratory and Centre for Energy and Power Electronics Research (ePOWER).
Required Expertise/Skills: Hands-on-electronics, motors and drives; Power electronics
Favored Expertise/Skills: Robotics; Control systems; CAD design
Who Can Apply? Domestic candidates with strong academic background (GPA>85%) and
The position is competitive and funded with an annual stipend of ~C$27,000. Application is open only to domestic students in Canada. IRIS Lab and ePOWER are committed to employment equity, diversity, and inclusion in the workplace and encourages applications from equity deserving groups.
NOTE: These positions do NOT apply to international candidates.
Apply: Please send a digital copy of your transcripts and CV to Dr. Keyvan Hashtrudi-Zaad at khz@queensu.ca. Use the subject line "Master's Positions in Mechatronics and Haptics for September 2026".
Background: Stroke is the leading cause of adult disability in Canada. Stroke survivors often experience persistent loss of movement and function in their arm and hand. Rehabilitation promotes recovery through therapist-guided practice. However, stroke survivors often need more therapy than inpatient and community-based rehabilitation can provide, leaving many with incomplete recovery.
As a complementary treatment to the usual care, home-based robotic rehabilitation can offer progressive goal-oriented training with the potential to increase the hours of effective therapy, promote independent practice and save therapists’ time. As these systems are to be used without a clinician present, there are significant challenges to ensure their utilization and efficacy. Current home-based systems involve repetitively moving the robot along trajectories that have little connection to meaningful functional activities. This can lead to lack of engagement and limited treatment efficacy.
Research Description: The Interactive Robotics and Intelligent Systems (IRIS) Lab is developing rehabilitation robotic systems for home-based post-stroke upper-limb therapy. As part of a Connected Minds (CM) program, an interdisciplinary team of researchers from Queen's Electrical and Computer Eng (ECE), Mechanical and Materials Eng. (MME) and School of Rehabilitation Therapy plan to further develop the robotic systems such that they safely support users to practice tasks that resemble activities of daily living (ADL). To this end, with the input from stroke survivors and therapists, the team will co-create a smart interface that enables meaningful communication with the robot, monitor the survivor’s posture and movement, and assess the therapy performance.
The smart interface will include a custom fabric glove, a graphical user interface (GUI) and intelligent algorithms to process the data. The glove will be equipped with pressure and miniature Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) sensors to wirelessly measure the grasp and pinch forces and estimate the hand and forearm posture. The collected data will be fed to AI models that output a metric scores reflecting the similarity /difference of the performed task by the survivor to a healthy population. These models will be trained using the data collected from healthy participants. The GUI will facilitate operating the robotic system and provide feedback to the stroke survivor and the therapist on therapy progression.
The research will primarily take place at the Ingenuity Labs Research Institute (IL) in Mitchell Hall and IRIS Lab in Walter Light Hall. The graduate student will be a student member of the CM and IL, and will benefit from various technical and social activities organized by CM and IL. The student will be co-supervised by Dr. K. Hashtrudi-Zaad and Dr. Nasim Montazeri, and advised by Dr. Vincent DePaul (Rehab Therapy).
Research Activities: The students is expected to
Attend the co-creation focus group sessions with stroke survivors and therapists
Assist in developing and fabricating the custom glove
Develop and evaluate machine learning algorithms for performance assessment of therapy
Develop a Graphical User Interface (GUI) for graphical rendering of the tasks
Technically assess the integrated systems of the glove and GUI
Who Can Apply? Domestic candidates with strong academic background (GPA>85% (3.7)) and
BASc in ECE in September 2026
BASc in MRE in September 2026
ECE and MRE students invited to the ECE 4+1 Accelerated Master’s programs
The MASc position is competitive and is funded with an annual stipend of ~C$27,500. IRIS Lab is committed to employment equity, diversity, and inclusion in the workplace and encourages applications from equity deserving groups.
Application & Deadline: Please send a digital copy of your transcripts and CV to Dr. Keyvan Hashtrudi-Zaad at khz@queensu.ca by Thursday April 23, 2026 . Please use the subject line “Master’s Position in Intelligent Rehabilitation Robotics for September 2026”.