Siobhan Oca

Originally from New Orleans, LA, Siobhan went to MIT for her undergraduate in Mechanical Engineering and UC Berkeley for her Masters in Translational Medicine. After working in some medical device startups in the bay area, she decided to come to Durham with her husband to pursue a PhD under Dr. Buckland in the DACTL lab. Since their arrival, they have welcomed their dog, Kepler (like the astronomer), and infant daughter. In their limited free time, they love exploring the walking trails around the triangle area. Before the pandemic this year, she played and coached the Duke Club Field Hockey team and looks forward to getting back on the field soon.

Siobhan is a PhD candidate studying medical robotics. One of the things she loves about the mars project in general is that she can see how her research could be directly applied to the deep space missions of the future- keeping people safe as they explore space. Still, there is a lot to understand in robotics and there are are definitely medical tasks that would make much more sense for clinicians to do in person or through teleoperation. She is really excited to understand where that boundary is and where it can be in the future.