Calvin Joyce

ARCLab

UC San Diego, La Jolla, CA

Seeking a medical robotics R&D / New Product Development internship, available January–September 2027. (resume · CV)

I build robots that physically interact with people, and the hard part isn’t the motion, it’s the contact.

At UC San Diego’s ARCLab (advisor: Prof. Michael Yip), I lead PHABS, a handheld bimanual haptic device capturing force-annotated demonstrations for imitation learning, and RIC, the first framework for robots that physically handle infants. I’m a co-author on the first Nature study of humanoid robots in surgery, and my redesigned camera mount fields a Phase II neonatal monitoring trial at Mount Sinai.

I started in mechanical design and now work up the stack: autonomy, controls, and robot learning, deployed on real hardware.

Why this work

When Hurricane Sandy hit New Jersey, my grandparents were unable to evacuate. I had just talked my way onto my school’s robotics team a year early, and I remember daydreaming about building a robot that could go in and rescue them. That thought is why I went into engineering, and it is why the questions I keep returning to are about robots helping people who cannot help themselves.

Outside the lab

I love to cook and bake when I have time, and I try to optimize for lower-calorie and high protein as much as possible. Otherwise I enjoy lifting in the gym, running exceedingly slow, or playing whatever sport I can get a group together for: soccer, basketball, pickleball, and hiking when we want something more chill. I support Manchester United and Williams Racing, which have taught me more about patience than any research project. And I have watched every piece of Star Wars content.

selected publications

In vivo feasibility study of humanoid robots in surgery

Zekai Liang, Nikita Thareja, Peihan Zhang, Calvin Joyce, Soofiyan Atar, Florian Richter, Garth Jacobsen, Shanglei Liu, Ryan Broderick, and Michael C. Yip

Nature, 2026

DOI Bib HTML

@article{liang2026invivo,
  title = {In vivo feasibility study of humanoid robots in surgery},
  author = {Liang, Zekai and Thareja, Nikita and Zhang, Peihan and Joyce, Calvin and Atar, Soofiyan and Richter, Florian and Jacobsen, Garth and Liu, Shanglei and Broderick, Ryan and Yip, Michael C.},
  journal = {Nature},
  year = {2026},
  doi = {10.1038/s41586-026-10796-x},
}

PHABS (Portable Haptic Assisted Bimanual System) for Force-Annotated Bimanual Shared Object Teleoperated Data

In preparation for ICRA 2027, 2027

Bib

@article{joyce2027phabs,
  title = {PHABS (Portable Haptic Assisted Bimanual System) for Force-Annotated Bimanual Shared Object Teleoperated Data},
  journal = {In preparation for ICRA 2027},
  year = {2027},
}

How Safe Is Robotic Infant Handling? Benchmarking Learning from Demonstration Against Clinical Thresholds for Neonatal Pickup and CPAP Mask Repositioning

In preparation for ICRA 2027, 2027

Bib

@article{joyce2027ric,
  title = {How Safe Is Robotic Infant Handling? Benchmarking Learning from Demonstration Against Clinical Thresholds for Neonatal Pickup and CPAP Mask Repositioning},
  journal = {In preparation for ICRA 2027},
  year = {2027},
}

Haptic Shoulder for Rendering Biomechanically Accurate Joint Limits for Human-Robot Physical Interactions

Calvin Joyce^*, Elizabeth Peiros^*, Tarun Murugesan^*, Roger Nguyen, Isabella Fiorini, Rizzi Galibut, and Michael C. Yip

In Proc. IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), 2025

arXiv Bib HTML

@inproceedings{peiros2025haptic,
  title = {Haptic Shoulder for Rendering Biomechanically Accurate Joint Limits for Human-Robot Physical Interactions},
  author = {Joyce, Calvin and Peiros, Elizabeth and Murugesan, Tarun and Nguyen, Roger and Fiorini, Isabella and Galibut, Rizzi and Yip, Michael C.},
  booktitle = {Proc. IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA)},
  year = {2025},
}

NASU – Novel Actuating Screw Unit: Origami-Inspired Screw-Based Propulsion on Mobile Ground Robots

Calvin Joyce, Jason Lim, Roger Nguyen, Michael Owens, Sara Wickenhiser, Elizabeth Peiros, Florian Richter, and Michael C. Yip

In Proc. International Symposium of Robotics Research (ISRR), 2024

arXiv Bib

@inproceedings{joyce2024nasu,
  title = {NASU -- Novel Actuating Screw Unit: Origami-Inspired Screw-Based Propulsion on Mobile Ground Robots},
  author = {Joyce, Calvin and Lim, Jason and Nguyen, Roger and Owens, Michael and Wickenhiser, Sara and Peiros, Elizabeth and Richter, Florian and Yip, Michael C.},
  booktitle = {Proc. International Symposium of Robotics Research (ISRR)},
  year = {2024},
}