Autonomy-enabling
surgical intelligence.

Semaphor Surgical is developing foundational AI infrastructure for surgical systems. Our perception, planning, and decision-making capabilities enable on-device intelligence that builds toward autonomy.

Semaphor Surgical was founded by a surgeon, a computer scientist, and a roboticist at Johns Hopkins University. Together, they recognized that the next generation of surgical systems would not just need better hardware, they would need intelligence: the ability to perceive, plan, and act in real time. Semaphor was built to create that intelligence layer, turning breakthrough research in surgical AI and autonomous robotics into infrastructure that any surgical system can use.

Tito Porras, MD, MBA

Chief Executive Officer

Tito Porras, MD, MBA is CEO and co-founder of Semaphor Surgical, where he leads the company's mission to build AI infrastructure for intelligent and increasingly autonomous surgery. Tito trained in neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital and received his M.D. from Dartmouth. His experience in the operating room shaped his conviction that surgical AI must move beyond research and into real devices, and he founded Semaphor to build the infrastructure that makes that possible.

Mathias Unberath, PhD

Chief Technology Officer

Mathias Unberath, PhD is CTO and co-founder of Semaphor Surgical and the John C. Malone Associate Professor of Computer Science at Johns Hopkins University. At Hopkins, Mathias leads the ARCADE Lab, where he builds foundational perception, simulation, and intelligence technologies for surgical AI. His lab created the physics-based imaging simulation and computer vision tools that Semaphor's platform is built on. At Semaphor, he is scaling that research into commercial infrastructure for the surgical ecosystem.

Axel Krieger, PhD

Chief Robotics Officer

Axel Krieger, PhD is Chief Robotics Officer and co-founder of Semaphor Surgical and an Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Johns Hopkins University. Axel serves as Director of the IMERSE Lab and is best known for leading the development of the Smart Tissue Autonomous Robot (STAR), the milestone system that demonstrated autonomous soft-tissue surgery on living tissue. At Semaphor, he is translating that breakthrough into commercial surgical autonomy.