Meet the Staff

Rob Sweet, MD - Director

Dr. Sweet graduated as a Doctor of Medicine, alpha omega alpha, from the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis in 1997; he next completed a general surgery residency in 1999 and a urology residency in 2003 both at the University of Washington in Seattle. While a resident he served two years as an American Foundation for Urological Diseases (AFUD) Health Policy Scholar in “Virtual Reality Applications in Urology” where he further developed his skills in the development, validation and implementation of procedural simulators. In July of 2003 he was appointed an Attending Physician and Acting Assistant Professor of Urology at the University of Washington Medical Center, the Harborview Medical Center and the VA Puget Sound Medical Center, all in Seattle. In July of 2005 Dr. Sweet was appointed Assistant Professor of Urologic Surgery and the Clinical Director for Simulation Program for the Medical School at the University of Minnesota.

rsweet@umn.edu;  Phone: (612) 626-3386

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Yunhe Shen, PhD - Biomedical Engineer & Research Associate

Yunhe Shen develops solutions to interactive surgery simulation problems including collision detection and response, deformation modeling, haptic rendering and motion tracking, etc. His interdisciplinary research experience includes surgical simulation, physiological modeling and control, medical signal processing, visualization, computer graphics and bioinstrumentation.

Email: shenx101@umn.edu;  Phone: (612) 624-0633

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Xiangmin Zhou, PhD - Bio-Physics Modeler & Research Associate

Xiangmin Zhou received his PhD, MS, and BS, degrees in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Minnesota. His research interests include material modeling, bio-physics modeling, Finite Element Method, and computational mechanics.

Email: xiangmin@msi.umn.edu;  Phone: (612) 624-0633

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Nan Zhang, PhD - Graphics Engineer & Research Associate

Nan Zhang is CREST's researcher leading in computer graphics, scientific visualization, and physics based modeling. It is his duty to develop virtual reality based surgical simulation systems.

Email: zhang373@umn.edu;  Phone: (612) 624-0633

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Dan Burke - Graphic Artist

Dan Burke is the Graphic Artist for CREST and SimPORTAL. He is responsible for creating realistic 3D virtual organs, tools and environments, as well as logos and general artwork.

Email: burke326@umn.edu;  Phone: (612) 624-0633

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