Speakers

Dr Stokes is a Reader in the Institute for Integrated Micro and Nano Systems at The University of Edinburgh. He is PI of the Soft Systems Group, an interdisciplinary research laboratory with a focus on Bioinspired Engineering, and research topics on Robotics, Fluidics, and Complexity. He is the Programme Director for MSc Electronics in The School of Engineering. He holds degrees in engineering, biomedical science, and chemistry.

Dr Stokes’s research interests include: robotics, physical chemistry, electrical engineering, materials science, nanotechnology, and synthetic biology.

Stefano Stramigioli received the M.Sc. with honors (cum laude) in 1992 and the Ph.D with honors (cum laude) in 1998. He is currently full professor in Advanced Robotics. He is an IEEE Fellow, an ERC AdG and ERC PoC laureate and member of the Royal Holland Society of Science and Humanities (KHMW). He is currently serving as the Vice President for Research of euRobotics and Vice President of Robotics Research of Adra (AI data and robotics association), the private part of the PPP cooperation with the European Commission known as AI PPP, and Vice President for Members activities of the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society. He is the coordinator of the Digital Innovation Hub on Robotics for Healthcare (www.dih-hero.eu). Among a number of awards, he received the 2009 IEEE-RAS distinguish service award.

He is currently leading a growing group of about 60 people (https://www.ram.eemcs.utwente.nl/). He has been Editor in chief of the IEEE Robotics and Automation Magazine, which he brought from the seventh to the first place in the ranking of the Impact Factor among all journals on Robotics. He has furthermore been Editor in Chief of the IEEE ITSC Newsletter and guest editor for others. He is member of the Editorial Board of the Springer Journal of Intelligent Service Robotics.

He has been an AdCom member of the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society, he has been the founder and chair of the Electronic Products and Services of the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society and he has been serving as Vice President for Membership of the same society for two consecutive terms also in the past. He is involved in different projects related to Control and Robotics for medical & inspection applications.

Nationally has been the founder and chair of RoboNED, the national platform coordinating all academic, industrial and governmental institutions on Robotics and responsible for producing a Strategic Research Agenda for Robotics for the Netherlands and he is one of the initiator of the LEO robotics center, the first robotic center in the Netherlands. He has been teaching Modeling, Control and Robotics for under and post-graduates. He has around 350 publications including 4 books.

Dr. Hiromi Mochiyama is a professor with the Faculty of Engineering, Information and Systems, University of Tsukuba, Japan, and the PI with Flexible Robotics Laboratory since 2007. He served as a Deputy Director of the Bureau of Science, Technology and Innovation Policy, Cabinet Office, Japan (2010-2011). He is the Vice President for Financial Activities of IEEE Robotics and Automation Society (2022-2023). His current research interest is trans-shape design of soft robots and haptic devices based on their system and control theories.

Tentative Talk Title: "Trans-shape Design of Soft Robots (P)"

Saivimal Sridar received his B.Tech in mechanical engineering from SASTRA University, India in 2014, an M.S. in Robotics Engineering from Worcester Polytechnic Institute in 2016, and a Ph.D in Systems Engineering from Arizona State University in 2020.

During his Masters’ and Ph.D, Saivimal has worked on the design of soft actuators and wearable devices utilizing soft actuation schemes for physical assistance and rehabilitation. As a Post-Doctoral researcher at the University of Twente, Netherlands, he is currently working on the development of soft-wearable systems for industrial use with the goal of reducing musculo-skeletal injuries and improve workplace ergonomics.