I completed my BEng, MEng, and PhD in the Department of Informatics, Bioengineering, Robotics and Systems Engineering at the University of Genova (Italy), where I worked primarily on the technological aspects of tactile sensing and the development of large-area tactile sensors for robots. I then worked as a PostDoc at the University of Cambridge, where I investigated topics related to soft sensing and soft robotics.

I moved to Oxford in September 2018 as an Associate Professor in the Engineering Science Department and a member of the Oxford Robotics Institute.

I teach mainly Electronic and Information Engineering subjects. First year: Circuit Analysis, Digital Electronics and Active Devices, Electricity and Magnetism. Second year: Introduction to Control Theory, Signal conditioning, Microcontroller Systems, Discrete Systems and Electromagnetism and Communications, and Electrical Machines.

I am interested in providing robots with a sense of touch. Touch is an essential modality that allows humans to interact with the environment and with other people. It is used in the manipulation and grasping of objects, whole-body interaction, exploration, and reactive behaviour (reflexes). It is also important for assessing contact parameters such as shape, texture, stiffness, and temperature of a touched surface, for developing awareness of the body, and for enabling automatic responses such as grasp-force regulation. The sense of touch is crucial for guiding motor behaviour—for everything from controlling the body to perceiving, learning about, and interacting with the environment.

New generations of robots are expected to operate in dynamic and unstructured environments, increasingly in collaboration with humans. Robots functioning under these conditions must exhibit advanced forms of interaction with both objects and people, requiring novel solutions in human–robot interaction. Soft robotic devices are of particular interest because they offer advantageous properties such as easy fabrication, low cost, light weight, and high flexibility. However, characterising and predicting their behaviour is challenging due to the non-linear nature of their hyper-elastic materials and internal pressure. To control them effectively, it is necessary to monitor their kinematics, their interaction forces with objects in the environment, and their internal pressure.

For these reasons, my research focuses on designing new technological solutions for tactile sensors that can be integrated into soft robots. These soft tactile sensors will improve tactile-based control of soft robots and will allow me to investigate aspects such as sensory–motor coordination and how action and perception are coupled in a soft embodiment—fundamental elements for effectively using touch sensing to enhance the cognitive skills of robots.