Keynote Speaker

Prof. Pietro Valdastri, University of Leeds, UK

Bio: Pietro Valdastri is Full Professor and Chair in Robotics and Autonomous Systems at the University of Leeds. He directs the Science and Technologies Of Robotics in Medicine (STORM) Lab, focusing on intelligent robots to fight cancer, the Institute of Robotics, Autonomous System and Sensing (IRASS), and the Robotics at Leeds network. He received his Laurea degree in Electronic Engineering from the University of Pisa in 2001 and his PhD in Biomedical Engineering from Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna in 2006. After the PhD, he became Assistant Professor in Biomedical Engineering at the BioRobotics Institute of Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna. In 2011, Prof Valdastri moved to Vanderbilt University as an Assistant Professor in Mechanical Engineering until 2016, when he relocated to Leeds.
He has published more than 150 peer reviewed journal papers in the field of medical robotics and has been principal investigator on grants in excess of $24M supported by NSF, NIH, ERC, EU-H2020, Cancer Research UK, The Royal Society, EPSRC, Innovate UK and industry, including the NSF CAREER Award with the proposal “Lifesaving Capsule Robots” in 2015, the ERC Consolidator Grant Award with the proposal “NoLiMiTs – Novel Lifesaving Magnetic Tentacles” in 2019, and the KUKA Innovation Award for his robotic colonoscopy platform in 2019. Prof. Valdastri is a Royal Society Wolfson Research Fellow, a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), the Editor for Medical and Rehabilitation Robotics of the IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, and a member of the steering committee of the International Society for Medical Innovation and Technology (iSMIT). STORM Lab’s research has been featured by several news outlets, including the BBC, The Times, The Washington Post, The Financial Times, Bloomberg, New Scientist, The Spectator, WIRED, IEEE Spectrum, Medgadget, Daily Mail, The Engineer, Ingenia Magazine, Medical Design Technology Magazine, Medical Xpress, Newswise, NSF Science Now. Prof Valdastri also completed a successful entrepreneurial cycle with WinMedical s.r.l., a company he co-founded in 2009 and that was acquired by a larger enterprise in 2017. He recently started a new company, Atlas Endoscopy Limited, to bring his robotic colonoscopy platform to patients.

Prof. Su Rong, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

Bio: Rong Su is the Professor of Systems Intelligence and Control at the Nanyang Technological University (NTU). He received his B.S. degree from the University of Science and Technology of China in 1997 and M.A.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Toronto in 2000 and 2004, respectively. He was affiliated with the University of Waterloo and Eindhoven University of Technology, before joining the faculty at NTU in 2010. Currently, he holds a full professor position, leading the Centre of Systems Intelligence and Efficiency (CSIE) in the School of Electrical & Electronic Engineering (EEE) at NTU. He is also the Program Director of the EEE Master of Science Program in Computer Control and Automation (CCA) and the NTU Lead of the Program Management Committee (PMC) of the KTH-NTU Joint PhD Program. His research interests include multi-agent systems, discrete-event system theory, model-based fault diagnosis, cyber security analysis and synthesis, control and optimization of complex networks with applications in flexible manufacturing, intelligent transportation, human-robot interface, power management and green buildings. In the aforementioned areas he has more than 330 journal and conference publications, 2 monographs, 18 granted/filed patents. Currently, he is serving as an associate editor for IEEE Transactions on Cybernetics, Automatica (IFAC), Journal of Discrete Event Dynamic Systems: Theory and Applications, and Journal of Control and Decision. He was the chair of the Technical Committee on Smart Cities in the IEEE Control Systems Society in 2016–2019, chair of the Control Systems Chapter, Singapore in 2020–2021, and a co-chair of Technical Committee on Automation in Logistics in the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society in 2021–2024. Dr Su is the recipient of several best paper awards, including 2021 Hsue-shen Tsien Paper Award from IEEE/CAA Journal of Automatica Sinica, and an IEEE Distinguished Lecturer for IEEE Robotics and Automation Society.

Prof. Fumiya Iida, University of Cambridge, UK

Bio: Fumiya Iida is a professor of robotics at the Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge. He received his bachelor and master degrees in mechanical engineering at Tokyo University of Science (Japan, 1999), and Dr. sc. nat. in Informatics at University of Zurich (2006). In 2004 and 2005, he was also engaged in biomechanics research of human locomotion at Locomotion Laboratory, University of Jena (Germany). From 2006 to 2009, he worked as a postdoctoral associate at the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology in USA. In 2006, he was awarded the Fellowship for Prospective Researchers from the Swiss National Science Foundation, and in 2009, he was appointed as a Swiss National Science Foundation Professor for bio-inspired robotics at ETH Zurich. His research interests include biologically inspired robotics, embodied artificial intelligence, and biomechanics, and he has been involved in a number of research projects related to dynamic legged locomotion, navigation of autonomous robots, and human-machine interactions. He has so far published over forty publications in major robotics journals and conferences, and edited two books. Currently he serves on the editorial board of the Soft Robotics Journal, Frontiers in Robotics and AI (Bio-Inspired Robotics Section), and as a program committee member for international conferences and workshops. In addition, he has organized a few seminal meetings such as the International Conference of Embodied Intelligence, RoboSoft, and TAROS.

Prof. Tetsuyou Watanabe, Kanazawa University, Japan

Bio: Tetsuyou Watanabe is a professor with Kanazawa University. He received the B.S., M.S., and Dr.Eng. degrees in mechanical engineering from Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan, in 1997, 1999, and 2003, respectively. From 2003 to 2007, he was a Research Associate with the Department of mechanical Engineering, Yamaguchi University, Japan. From 2007 to 2011, he was an assistant professor with Division of Human and Mechanical Science and Engineering, Kanazawa University. From 2011 to 2018, he was an associate professor with Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Institute of Science and Engineering, Kanazawa University. Since 2018, he has been a professor with Kanazawa University. From 2008 to 2009, he was a visiting researcher at Munich University of Technology. His current research interests include robotic hand, grasping, object manipulation, medical and welfare sensors, surgical robots, and user interface. He got several awards including best paper award at Transactions of the Society of Instrument and Control Engineers and World Robot Summit Second Prize of World Robot Challenge Industrial Robotics Category Second Prize of World Robot Challenge Industrial Robotics Category.