Integrated Micro and Nano Systems

Dr Julianna Panidi is a Chancellor’s Fellow/Lecturer in n Climate and Environmental Sustainability at the Institute for Integrated Micro and Nano Systems at the School of Engineering. Before she was an EPSRC David Clarke Fellow in the Department of Chemistry at Imperial College London. She is a Fellow of the 2024 European Talent Academy and a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, and she has been a Mental Health First Aider for over 9 years.

Julianna obtained her PhD in 2020 from Imperial College London, Department of Physics, part of the Plastic Electronics CDT. Additionally, she holds an MRes in Physics and Nanomaterials (2015) from the University of Pierre and Marie Currie in Paris, France. In 2014, she completed her BSc in Materials Science at the University of Patras in Greece.

Accepting PhD applications.

• Chancellor's Fellow, 2024, University of Edinburgh

• Fellow of the 2024 European Talent Academy, Imperial

• Postdoctoral EPSRC Fellowship, 2022

• David Clarke EPSRC Fellow, 2022

• co-Chair of the People & Culture Committee at the School of Engineering, UoE, since 2025
• Member of the Athena Swan SAT, UoE, since 2025
• Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, 2023
• Member of the Royal Society of Chemistry, 2022

• Professional Issues 4
• Cohort Lead Year 5

Her research focuses on developing high-performing and eco-friendly solution-processed electronics, such as thin film transistors, sensors, and solar cells. She has studied methods to enhance the optoelectronic properties of the materials and the devices. During her DCF fellowship, she was focusing on sustainable solution-processed solar cells, primarily focusing on materials, methods, and solvents used during manufacturing.

Dr. Anil Kumar Appukuttan Nair Syamala Amma works as a postdoctoral research associate at ACRC. He received his M.Sc. degree in Electronics Science from Cochin University of Science and Technology, Cochin, India, in 2012, and his M.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from IIT Madras, Chennai, India, in 2019. He completed his Ph.D jointly from Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia, and IIT Madras, India, in 2023. His doctoral research focused on investigating sensing techniques and strategies to develop electric and magnetic field based miniaturized angle sensors for industrial and automotive applications. Anil worked as a Project Associate at the Department of Electrical Engineering, IIT Madras, from June 2014 to June 2017. During this period, he worked in the research and development of sensors for intelligent transportation systems and automotive applications. His current research interests include measurements, sensors and their signal conditioning for biomedical, industrial, and automotive purposes.

Dr. Giorgio-Serchi is a Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) within the School of Engineering, Institute of Integrated Micro and Nano System, and teaches within the Mechanical Engineering discipline; he is affiliated with the Edinburgh Centre for Robotics. His research focueses on soft-bodied underwater vehicle design and control, soft manipulator control, model-predictive control of unmanned underwater vehicles and soft robot sensing.

Dr Giorgio-Serchi holds a Laurea Degree (MSc equivalent) in Marine Science & Technology from the University of Pisa. He was a Marie-Curie Early Stage Training (EST) Fellowship and PhD in Computational Fluid Dynamics at the University of Leeds under the supervision of Prof. Jeff Peakall. In 2011 he was awarded a Marie-Curie European Reintegration Grant (ERG) to undertake a Research Fellowship in bioinspired aquatic propulsion at the Centre for Sea Technologies and Marine Robotics of the Biorobotics Institute, as part of the CFD-OctoProp project and the project PoseiDrone, under the supervision of Prof. Cecilia Laschi. In 2015, sponsored by the Lloyd's Register Foundation, he moved to the Fluid Structure Interaction Group of the University of Southampton to work on the development of bioinspired soft-bodied underwater vehicles and the study of aquatic propulsion aided by body-shape variations under the supervision of Prof. Gabriel Weymouth. 

In 2018 Dr Giorgio-Serchi moved to the University of Edinburgh as Chancellor 's Fellow in Robotics and Autonomous Systems (Tenure Track Assistant Professor), as part of the Data Driven Innovation initiative, joined the Soft Systems Group and started work within the OrcaHub in collaboration with Dr. Kiprakis (Institute of Energy Systems), Prof. Mistry (School of Informatics) and Dr. Stokes (Scottish Microelectronics Institute).

Dr Giorgio-Serchi currently maintains collaboration with Dr. Weymouth at the DelftTU, Dr. Calisti at the Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna and Dr. Renda at Kahlifa University. I also maintain very active collaborations with Prof. Suzumori's Endorobotics Lab at Tokyo Tech, Prof. Mochiyama's Flexible Robotics Lab at Tsukuba University, Prof. Tadokoro's Human-Robot Informatics Lab at Tohoku-Sendai University and Hosoya's Mechanical Dynamics Lab at Shibaura Institute of Technology.

• PhD in Computational Fluid Dynamics from the University of Leeds, CFD Centre, 2011
• Laurea (MSc equivalent) in Marine Science and Technologies, University of Pisa, 2006

• IEEE
• IEEE Robotics and Automation Society

• Lecturer for Control and Instrumentation Engineering 3 (SCEE09002)
• Course Organiser and Lecturer for O&M Robotics and Sensors (Postgraduate Course: IDCORE- PGEE11235)
• Course Organiser and Lecturer for Industrial Robotics (Postgraduate Course: MSc DDM - PGEE11212)
• Course Organiser for Professional Issues for Mechanical Engineers (SCEE09001)
• Lecturer for Applications of Sensor and Imaging Systems (Postgraduate Course: MSc SIS - PGEE11136)

Latest Research Output

1. Dashty Samal Rashid, Francesco Giorgio-Serchi, Naoki Hosoya, David Garcia Cava, "Energy localization and eigenvalue veering induced by local constraints in bolted structures", Proceedings of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences, 2025, https://doi.org/10.1098/rspa.2025.0501
2. Delin Hu, Huazhi Dong, Francesco Giorgio-Serchi, Yunjie Yang, "A self-supervised learning framework for soft robot proprioception", IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks and Learning Systems, 2025, DOI: 10.1109/TNNLS.2025.3610759
3. Kyle L Walker, Laura-Beth Jordan, Francesco Giorgio-Serchi, "Nonlinear model predictive dynamic positioning of a remotely operated vehicle with wave disturbance preview", The International Journal of Robotics Research, 2025, https://doi.org/10.1177/02783649241286909
4. Delin Hu, Francesco Giorgio-Serchi, Shiming Zhang, Yunjie Yang, "Stretchable e-skin and transformer enable high-resolution morphological reconstruction for soft robots", Nature Machine Intelligence, 2023, https://doi.org/10.1038/s42256-023-00622-8