I am the CEO / CTO of Acumino (www.acumino.ai), Director of the New Dexterity (http://www.newdexterity.org/) research group and an Honorary Associate Professor at the Department of Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering, University of Auckland.

I am interested in equipping robots with dexterous manipulation capabilities and enabling humans to regain their lost dexterity or augment their performance, modeling, designing and controlling new robotics and bionics hardware. I am the founder of the OpenBionics initiative (www.openbionics.org) and a co-founder of OpenRobotHardware (www.openrobothardware.org) and HandCorpus (www.handcorpus.org).

During my postdoctoral training, my research focused on hybrid schemes that combine analytical models, constrained optimization methods and machine learning techniques for simplifying robust grasping, dexterous, in-hand manipulation and haptic object identification using adaptive robot hands. During my PhD studies, I worked under the supervision of Prof. Kostas Kyriakopoulos (http://users.ntua.gr/kkyria) in the Control Systems Lab (http://www.controlsystemslab.gr/) and my research focused on EMG-based decoding of human motion and intention for the control of robotic and prosthetic devices in structured and dynamic environments.

# Distinctions/Honours #

2022 - Outstanding Reviewer Award (4 reviewers were selected among 5,854 reviewers of the conference) - 2022 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA)

2022 - 3rd place of the Manufacturing track of the Robotic Grasping and Manipulation Competition of the 2022 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA)

2021 - Best Paper Award on Robotic Mechanisms and Design, IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), Prague, Czech Republic / Online.

2020 - Students' Choice Top Teacher Award, Faculty of Engineering, University of Auckland.

2020 - 1st Prize, United Cerebral Palsy Los Angeles Assistive Devices Challenge, Hackaday Prize, Online.

2020 - 3rd place of the Manufacturing track of the Robotic Grasping and Manipulation Competition of IEEE\RSJ International Conference on Robotics and Intelligent Systems (IROS), Las Vegas, USA / Online.

2020 - Finalist, Best Paper Award on Robotic Mechanisms and Design, IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), Las Vegas, USA / Online.

2019 - 1st place of the Manufacturing track of the Robotic Grasping and Manipulation Competition of IEEE\RSJ International Conference on Robotics and Intelligent Systems (IROS) 2019 (Macau, China).

2018 - Students' Choice Top Teacher Award, Faculty of Engineering, University of Auckland.

2017 - Sarafis Award for Best PhD Thesis, National Technical University of Athens.

2015 - 2nd Prize (out of 900+ projects from 50+ countries), Hackaday Prize, Hackaday.

2015 - Robotdalen International Innovation Award, Robotdalen.

2013 - Thomaidion Award for Scientific Publications.

2012 - Student Travel Award, IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA).

2012 - Thomaidion Award for Scientific Publications.

2010 - Thomaidion Award for Scientific Publications.

Responsibilities:
Part 4 Projects (Final Year Research Projects) Coordinator of the Department of Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering (Course Coordinator & Director of MECHENG 700 A/B)

Coordinator of Field Trips, Part III Mechatronics, Dept. of Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering

Postgraduate Studies Supervisor, Department of Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering


Areas of Expertise:
- Robotic and Bionic Grippers and Hands
- Assistive and Human Augmentation Devices
- Robot Grasping and Dexterous Manipulation
- Analysis and Evaluation of Human and Robot Dexterity
- Robotic Teleoperation and Telemanipulation
- Muscle Machine Interfacing Methods
- Human to Robot Skill Transfer
- Modular Reconfigurable Drones
- All-Terrain Robotic Vehicles
- Machine Learning and Pattern Recognition
- Design and Development of Mechatronic Systems
- Humanoid Robots

Media Keywords:
Robotics, Bionics, Biomechatronics, Medical Devices, Human Robot Interaction, Prosthetics, Muscle Machine Interfaces, Assistive Devices, Robotic Grippers, Robotic Hands, Humanoid Robots, All-Terrain Vehicles, Mechatronics, Machine Learning and Pattern Recognition, Artificial Intelligence