Puxun Tu (涂朴勋)

I am currently a postdoctoral researcher at the Surgical Planning Laboratory at Harvard Medical School, mentored by Prof. Ron Kikinis since March 2026. Previously, I was a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of Biomedical Manufacturing and Life Quality Engineering, School of Mechanical Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China, where I earned my Ph.D. in March 2025 under the mentorship of Prof. Xiaojun Chen. I began my academic journey there in 2019 as a direct-track Master's-to-Ph.D. student. In 2023, I worked as a visiting Ph.D. student at the Pattern Recognition and Image Analysis (PRIA) Lab at the University of Münster, Germany, hosted by Prof. Xiaoyi Jiang. I received my Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering from Chongqing University (Hongshen Honors School) in 2019.

My research focuses on AI-based surgical scene understanding, navigation, and robotics.

Puxun Tu
Last update: Jun. 2026.

News

2026 Published papers in Nature Biomedical Engineering, IEEE TIP, and Medical Image Analysis (3x).
2025 Published papers in Information Fusion, and Medical Image Analysis (2x).
2024 Published papers in IEEE TBME, IEEE TMI and CMPB.
2023 Published papers in IEEE TMI, IEEE TVCG, and MICCAI.
2022 Published papers in IEEE TBME, Medical Physics.
2021 Published papers in CMPB, and CIBM.

Selected Publications

Selected Talks

  • AR-Assisted Surgical Navigation for Soft and Microscopic Surgeries.
    Invited talk at MICS China by Prof. YuFei Chen, online., 2025
  • AR-Assisted Surgical Navigation for Soft and Microscopic Surgeries.
    Invited talk at iMVR Lab @ NUS by Prof. Yueming Jin, online., 2025
  • Development of an AR and AI-Powered Surgical Microscope for Ophthalmic Surgical Navigation.
    Oral presentation at CARS 2025, Berlin, Germany., 2025
  • AR-Assisted Surgical Navigation for Soft and Microscopic Surgeries.
    Invited talk at CSIG-S3DI by Prof. Tianqi Huang, Suzhou, China,, 2025
  • AR-Based Surgical Navigation for Microscopic Cataract Surgery. Paper Incentive Program Award (1 of 3)
    Oral presentation at CCF-Digital Medicine Conference, Beijing, China., 2025
  • Intraoperative Soft Tissue Deformation Perception-Guided Mixed Reality Surgical Navigation and Robotic System for Head and Neck Surgery.
    Invited talk at CMA-Digital Medicine Conference by Prof. Xiangdong Qi, Shanghai, China., 2025
  • Augmented Reality Surgical Navigation for Soft Tissue and Microsurgical Procedures. Award Finalist (1 of 8)
    Oral presentation at MICCAI MSB PhD Thesis Madness, Marrakech, Morocco., 2024
  • AI and AR in Medical Image Processing, Surgical Navigation, and Robotics: A Focus on Medical Shape Analysis.
    Invited talk at MICCAI MedShapeNet tutorial by Gijs Luijten, Marrakech, Morocco., 2024
  • Efficient Spatiotemporal Learning of Microscopic Video for Augmented Reality-Guided Phacoemulsification Cataract Surgery.
    Oral presentation at OMIA Workshop, Marrakech, Morocco., 2024
  • Augmented Reality Based Surgical Navigation for Soft and Microscopic Surgeries.
    Invited talk at HIT Webinar by Dr. Jiancheng Yang, Online., 2024
  • Augmented Reality Based Surgical Navigation for Soft and Microscopic Surgeries.
    Invited talk at WEISS by Prof. Matt Clarkson and Prof. Gary Zhang, University College London, UK., 2024
  • Phase-Specific Augmented Reality Navigation for Microscopic Cataract Surgery.
    Oral presentation at ACCAS, Daegu, Korea., 2024
  • Ultrasound Image and Microscopic Video Guided Augmented Reality Surgical Navigation System.
    Invited talk at PRIA Lab at the University of Münster by Prof. Xiaoyi Jiang, Germany,, 2024
  • Phase-Specific Augmented Reality Navigation for Microscopic Cataract Surgery. Second Prize
    Oral presentation at CCF-Digital Medicine Conference, Shenyang, China. , 2024
  • Phase-Specific Augmented Reality Guidance for Microscopic Cataract Surgery Using Spatiotemporal Fusion Network. Excellent Paper First Prize (1 of 2)
    Oral presentation at China Biomedical Engineering Conference, Shenzhen, China., 2024
  • Inter-frame Sclera Vessel Rotation Tracking for Toric Intraocular Lens Implantation Navigation.
    Poster presentation at MICCAI, Vancouver, Canada., 2023
  • A multi-view interactive virtual-physical registration method for mixed reality based surgical navigation in pelvic and acetabular fracture fixation.
    Oral presentation at CARS, Munich, Germany., 2023
  • Development of an Ultrasound Image and Mixed reality Guided Surgical Navigation System with Continuous Soft Tissue Deformation Tracking. Young Best Paper Presentation (sole recipient)
    Oral presentation at China Biomedical Engineering Conference, Shenzhen, China., 2022
  • MRSNS: mixed reality guided surgical navigation system using an external electromagnetic tracker and a head-mounted display.
    Oral presentation at CMBBE, Bonn, Germany., 2021
  • AR (Augmented Reality)-based Navigation for Distal Interlocking of Intramedullary Nails Utilizing Microsoft HoloLens 2.
    Oral presentation at ACCAS, online., 2020
  • Accurate and robust non-rigid shape correction of deformed hepatic vascular trees using sparse intraoperative ultrasound images. Second Prize
    Oral presentation at SJTU Graduate Academic Forum, Shanghai, China., 2022
  • Ultrasound image guided and mixed reality based surgical system with real-time soft tissue deformation computing for robotic cervical pedicle screw placement.
    Oral presentation at SJTU Graduate Academic Forum, Online., 2021

Funding

  • National Natural Science Foundation of China PhD Student Project (one of 400 nationwide), 823B2045, PI.
  • Chinese Association for Science and Technology (CAST) Young Talent Support Program PhD Project, PI.
  • China Postdoctoral Science Foundation, 2025M772924, PI.
  • National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) Key Project, 82330063, Key Investigator.
  • National Key R&D Program of China, 2022YFE0197900, Key Investigator.
  • NSFC Sino-German International Cooperation Project, M-0019, Key Investigator.

Academic Services & Activities

  • Reviewer for 10+ journals and conferences, including npj Digital Medicine, IEEE JBHI, IEEE T-MRB, IEEE CGA, MICCAI, etc.
  • Program committee member of MICCAI 2023 Seg. A. Challenge.
  • Program committee member of International Conference on Mechanical Automation and Engineering Materials 2024.
  • Committee Member of CSIG-S3DI, MICS.

Awards & Achievements

  • 2024 Academic Raising Star of Shanghai Jiao Tong University (10 recipients annually).
  • 2024 National Scholarship for Doctoral Students.
  • 2026 Top 10 Vertical Domain Large Foundation Model Award, Shanghai Jiao Tong University.
  • 2025 Outstanding Graduate of Shanghai Municipality.
  • 2021 Top Cited Article in Expert Review of Medical Devices (2nd highest citations).
  • 2025 Gold Award (Shanghai) and National Excellence Award, Postdoctoral Innovation Competition.
  • 2021 Grand Prize, The "Challenge Cup" Competition of Shanghai.
  • 2024 First Prize, 9th National Biomedical Engineering Innovation Design Competition.
  • 2025 Award Winner, Retinal Segmentation Challenge (ISICDM Conference).
  • 2023 SJTU Overseas Study Grants for Elite PhD Students.
  • 2023 First Prize, Changjiang Siyuan Science and Technology Innovation Scholarship.
  • 2021 Shao Xiu Medical+X Innovation Scholarship.
  • 2021 Excellence Award, TOYOTA Scholarship.
  • 2022 First Prize, LEGEND Medical Scholarship.
  • 2017 First Prize (Top 1%), Contemporary Undergraduate Mathematical Contest in Modeling.