Talks

Prof. Cavallo is Associate Professor in Biomedical Robotics and Biomechatronics at the University of Florence, Department of Industrial Engineering, Florence, Italy. He received a Masters Degree in Electronics Engineering, Curriculum Bioengineering, from the University of Pisa, Italy, and the Ph.D. degree in Bioengineering at the BioRobotics Institute of Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, Pisa, Italy. Prof Cavallo’s expertise spans biomedical robotics, socially assistive robotics, wearable sensors, IoT, AI and healthcare robotics for active and healthy ageing.  He has participated in various national and European projects and is the author of 180+ papers at conferences and ISI journals. His talk will focus on how multimodal sensing, wearables and socially assistive systems can support digital biomarkers, functional assessment, prevention and personalised interventions for older adults.

https://www.abrlab.unifi.it/vp-4-people.html

Talk Title: From Wearables and Social Robotics to Digital Biomarkers for Active and Healthy Ageing

Relevant papers:

1. Pani, J., Fiorini, L., Rovini, E. et al. Twelve-month pilot study on wearables to enhance health and quality of life in older adults. Health Technol. 16, 371–380 (2026).

2. Alessandra Sorrentino, Federico Carpi, Stefano De Gaspari, Aiman Rashid, Anna Maria Monciatti, Irene Alice Chicchi Giglioli, Daniele Fiaschi, Giuseppe Riva, Filippo Cavallo, Leveraging human–robot interaction and virtual reality for digital biomarkers in diagnostics and rehabilitation: a review from the Age-It Research Program, The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, Volume 80, Issue Supplement_2, December 2025, Pages S189–S200.

Prof. Ni Zhao is Professor and Department Vice-Chair, Graduate, in the Department of Electronic Engineering at The Chinese University of Hong Kong. She received her PhD in Physics from the University of Cambridge and completed postdoctoral research at MIT before joining CUHK in 2010. Her research focuses on optoelectronic, electronic and electrochemical devices based on organic and nanostructured materials, with particular emphasis on flexible/wearable sensors, biomedical devices and advanced sensing technologies for cardiovascular and health monitoring. Her team has developed epidermal optoelectronic sensing technologies for low-power continuous arterial blood pressure tracking and a multi-wavelength photoplethysmography model enabling simultaneous acquisition of heart rate, blood pressure, respiratory rate and blood oxygen level.

https://www.ee.cuhk.edu.hk/en-gb/people/academic-staff/professors/prof-ni-zhao

Talk title: Flexible Multimodality Sensors for Cardiovascular Risk Monitoring.

Relevant papers

1. Qiu, S., Xiao, T., Li, Y., Xiong, Y., Wu, S., Zhang, Y., Lin, Y., & Zhao, N. A multi-modal smart chest patch for real-time cardiopulmonary monitoring and anomaly detection. Science China Materials, 68, 4413–4422, 2025.

2. Liang, C., Jiang, Z., Qiu, S., Zhao, L., Mao, X., Yang, X., Zhang, Y., & Zhao, N., A conformal piezoelectric microsystem for demographic-adaptive and calibration-free cuffless blood pressure monitoring. Nature Communications, 17, Article 439, January 2026

Prof. Wansoo Kim is Associate Professor in the Robotics Department at Hanyang University ERICA, Republic of Korea, and Team Leader of the Human-Robot Collaboration (HARCO) Lab. His research focuses on physical human-robot interaction, human-robot collaboration, shared control, ergonomics, human modelling, mobile manipulation and powered exoskeleton robots. He previously worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the Human-Robot Interfaces and Physical Interaction Lab at the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, and has developed exoskeleton systems and collaborative robot control methods informed by pHRI and ergonomics.

https://harco.hanyang.ac.kr/members/wansoo_kim.html

Talk title: Human-Centred Wearable Robotics and Physical Human-Robot Interaction for AgeTech and Assistive Healthcare.

Relevant papers

1. Choi, S., Ha, S., & Kim, W. A Multi-Task Energy-Aware Impedance Controller for Enhanced Safety in Physical Human-Robot Interaction.” IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, 10(2), 1345–1352, 2025.

2. Ham, S., Paing, S. L., Kang, B. B., Lee, H., & Kim, W. Design and Validation of Soft Sliding Structure With Adjustable Stiffness for Ankle Sprain Prevention. IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, 9(2), 947–954, 2024.