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.

Since October 2018 I am a Chancellor 's Fellow in Robotics and Autonomous Systems, as part of the Data Driven Innovation initiative. I am based in the Scottish Mircroelectronics Center where I am part of the Soft Systems Group. There I conduct research on soft-bodied underwater vehicle design and propulsion, soft manipulator machine-learning control, model-predictive control of unmanned underwater vehicles and shape-changing vibrational systems. I am also part of the Edinburgh Centre for Robotics.

I hold a Laurea Degree (MSc equivalent) in Marine Science & Technology from the University of Pisa with a thesis on coastal meteorology numerical weather prediction undertaken at the Laboratory for Environmental Monitoring and Modelling (LAMMA) in Florence. I was later awarded a Marie-Curie Early Stage Training (EST) Fellowship to do a PhD in Computational Fluid Dynamics at the University of Leeds under the supervision of Prof. Jeff Peakall, jointly between the School of Earth and Environment and the Faculty of Engineering. My postgraduate research entailed the study of density-driven flows and turbidity currents in sinuous channels. In 2011 I 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, I moved to the Fluid Structure Interaction Group of the University of Southampton where I started working on the development of bioinspired soft-bodied underwater vehicles and the study of aquatic propulsion aided by body-shape variations. In June 2016 I was awarded, along with Dr. Gabriel Weymouth, a "technology proof-of-concept" NERC grant to pursue the study of pulsed-jet propelled, shape-changing underwater vehicles within the "Aquatic soft robots for environmental sensing" project.

In 2018 I moved to the University of Edinburgh as a Research Associate of the OrcaHub, where I work on model predictive control of unmanned underwater vehicles for operations in advese weather conditions. This project is carried out in collaboration with Dr. Kiprakis (Institute of Energy Systems), Prof. Mistry (School of Informatics) and Dr. Stokes (Scottish Microelectronics Institute).

I collaborate with Dr. Weymouth at the University of Southampton, Dr. Calisti at the University of Lincoln 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

• Course Organiser for Professional Issues for Mechanical Engineers (SCEE09001)
• Lecturer for Applications of Sensor and Imaging Systems (PGEE11136)

Latest Research Output

1. N Hosoya, T Niikura, S Hashimura, I Kajiwara, F Giorgio-Serchi, 2020, Axial force measurement of the bolt/nut assemblies based on the bending mode shape frequency of the protruding thread part using ultrasonic modal analysis, Measurements, DOI: 10.1016/j.measurement.2020.107914.
2. F Giorgio-Serchi, A Lidtke, G Weymouth, 2018, A soft aquatic actuator for unsteady peak power amplification, IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics, DOI: 10.1109/TMECH.2018.2873253
3. F Corucci, N Cheney, F Giorgio-Serchi, J Bongard, C Laschi, 2018, Evolving soft locomotion in aquatic and terrestrial environment: effects of material properties and environmental transitions, Soft Robotics 5 (4), 475-495
4. F Renda, F Giorgio-Serchi, F Boyer, C Laschi, J Dias, L Seneviratne, A unified multi-soft-body dynamics model for underwater soft robots,The International Journal of Robotics Research 37 (6), 648-666.
5. F Giorgio-Serchi, A Arienti, F Corucci, M Giorelli, C Laschi, Hybrid parameter identification of a multi-modal underwater soft robot, Bioinspiration & biomimetics 12 (2), 025007.

PhD Opportunities

I am looking for candidates interested in mechatronics, control and fluid mechanics. I am keen to supervise students with intersting and challanging design and control problems in robotics. In particular, I am looking for candidates in the following topics:

• Advanced Marine Renewable Energy Harvesting via Added-Mass-Variation Control, see details here.
• Loose Bolt Identification via Machine Learning, see details here.

Some of the projects currently available are sponsored by the Edinburgh Centre for Robotics:

• Model Predictive Control of underwater floating-base manipulator systems in rough seas, this PhD is jointly supervised with Dr. Dunnigan at Heriot-Watt University and is part of the CDT in Robotics of the Edinburgh Centre for Robotics, see details here.

• Bridging Together Compliant and Continuum Robots, this PhD is part of the CDT in Robotics of the Edinburgh Centre for Robotics, see details here.