John Kenneth Salisbury Jr.

Timeline

1. 1951–1982

   Three Stanford degrees

   Born in Schenectady, New York, in 1951, he earns a BS in electrical engineering at Stanford in 1975, then an MS in 1977 and a PhD in 1982 in mechanical engineering. Bernard Roth advises his doctoral thesis, Kinematic and Force Analysis of Articulated Hands.

2. By 1985

   The Salisbury Hand

   His doctoral work with Roth, seeded by NASA and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, produces a three-finger robot hand with nine independently controlled joints, later called the Salisbury Hand. A small company he forms sells about 20 of them to researchers. In 1985, he and Matthew T. Mason publish Robot Hands and the Mechanics of Manipulation in the MIT Press series in artificial intelligence.

3. 1982–1999

   Research scientist at MIT's AI Lab

   In 1982, he arrives at MIT for a one-year postdoc in the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and stays until 1999 as a Principal Research Scientist in Mechanical Engineering. With Bill Townsend, his first PhD graduate at MIT, he builds the Whole Arm Manipulation (WAM) arm, which Townsend's Barrett Technologies later sells. With undergraduate Thomas Massie he develops the PHANToM haptic interface, a force-feedback device for feeling virtual objects, which leads to the founding of SensAble Technologies.

4. 1997

   Advising Intuitive Surgical

   In 1997, he becomes scientific adviser to Intuitive Surgical in Mountain View, working on dexterity-enhancing telerobotic systems for surgeons. He spends four years at the company helping develop the first-generation da Vinci surgical robot.

5. 1999

   Professor at Stanford

   In the fall of 1999, he joins the Stanford faculty in the Departments of Computer Science and Surgery, working on robot arms that operate in contact and cooperation with people and on haptic interfaces. With the Department of Surgery he builds a multi-person surgical simulator, and under NASA funding his group develops a virtual environment where planetary geologists can view and feel remote geophysical data.

6. 2007

   Building PR1 at Stanford

   In his Stanford lab, PhD students Keenan Wyrobek and Eric Berger build PR1, a mobile manipulation prototype for the Stanford Personal Robotics Program, and in 2007 they show a teleoperated PR1 cleaning a home. The work leads to Willow Garage, its PR2 robot and the Robot Operating System (ROS).

7. 2011–2022

   Two IEEE robotics awards

   In 2011, he receives the IEEE Inaba Technical Award for Innovation Leading to Production for the commercialization of products in medical robotics, robotics and haptics. The IEEE Robotics and Automation Society names him a 2022 recipient of its Pioneer in Robotics and Automation Award, alongside Marc Raibert, for contributions to robot mechanics, mechanism design and surgical manipulation.

8. As of October 2026

   Emeritus professor at Stanford

   He becomes Professor Emeritus at Stanford in 2017 and keeps working on robot hands, coauthoring papers on the Roller Grasper V3 in 2024 and the Tactile-Reactive Roller Grasper in 2025, both in IEEE Transactions on Robotics. He is Professor (Research) of Computer Science and of Surgery (Anatomy), Emeritus, and a member of Stanford's Bio-X.