Yulun Wang, the head of research and development at Teladoc Health and a pioneer in the field of remote and robotic surgery, has joined the volunteer Board of Directors for Cottage Health.

Wang has deep roots in the area, having earned his doctorate in electrical and computer engineering from UC Santa Barbara. He then spent decades pushing the envelope in regards to medical technology, founding two groundbreaking companies: the surgical robotics company Computer Motion in 1990 and the telehealth company InTouch Health in 2003. InTouch was bought by Teladoc Health in July.

Wang is listed as an author on more than 50 technical publications and as an inventor on more than 200 patents, and he was appointed as a Council Member on the California Council on Science and Technology from 2017 through 2020. With his first company, Computer Motion, he was the principal architect and inventor on both the AESOP, a voice-controlled robotic arm, and the ZEUS robotic surgical system.

Wang also has prior experience as a board member. He served on the board of Hoag Memorial Hospital in Newport Beach from 2008 to 2015, and on the board of the American Telemedicine Association from 2010 to 2016. He is currently serving on two other boards: WellAir, a company that uses high plasma energy to clean air; and World Telehealth Initiative, which works to bring health care to impoverished areas.

Cottage Health is a non-profit that operates hospitals in Santa Barbara County and clinics all over the tri-county region.