News
2026
(08/2025) We have organised the second edition of our workshop ADNSL at Accelerate Conference 2025.
(03/2025) We have been awarded the EPSRC AIchemy Pump Priming grant for our project Transforming Chemistry Labs with Safe and Intuitive Human-in-the-Loop Robotic Systems, with University of Nottingham and Dr. Luis Figueredo (PI). Stay tuned for the research outputs from this project!
(03/2025) I gave an invited talk at the AIchemy Annual Conference 2025.
(01/2025) Our paper Multimodal Behaviour Trees for Robotic Laboratory Task Automation has been accepted at IEEE ICRA 2025! Congratulations to all the team!
2024
(12/2024) We have been awarded the Google Deepmind Research Ready grant for our programme ‘Upskilling Students in AI and Robotics for Materials Discovery’. If you are a UK-based student in your penultimate year (and satisfy at least one of the `widening participation criteria’), and would like to join us in Liverpool in Summer 2025, contact me! :)
(11/2024) I gave an invited talk at UoM on Fellowship Grant Application.
(11/2024) I gave an invited talk at the LRC Symposium.
(10/2024) Laura (CDT DAMC) and Cenk (RAEng RF-aligned PhD) have joined my research group as PhD students - stay tuned for their research work on safer and upskilled robotic chemists!
(08/2024) Kevin presented our work on Accelerating Laboratory Automation Through Robot Skill Learning For Sample Scraping at IEEE CASE 2024 which was also nominated for the Best Healthcare Application award!
(06/2024) Alex joined my group as an AIchemy UG student researcher.
(05/2024) I started my role as RAL for CMD at the Henry Royce Institute.
(04/2024) I gave an invited talk at the BCSWomen Lovelace Colloquium
(02/2024) Imperial and Liverpool will lead UK’s flagship £12m AI for Chemistry Hub AIChemy - led by Andy and Kim. Thrilled to be part of this exciting research hub.
(02/2024) We are organising the first workshop on Accelerating Discovery in Natural Science Laboratories with AI and Robotics at IEEE ICRA 2024! CFP is out!
(01/2024) Our paper Modular, multi-robot integration of laboratories: an autonomous workflow for solid-state chemistry has been published in Chemical Science. Congrats Amy!
2023
(10/2023) Anna Kisil and Nikola Radulov have joined my group as PhD students. Looking forward to their contributions in the field of intelligent robotic scientists!
(09/2023) Our paper Go with the flow: deep learning methods for autonomous viscosity estimations has been accepted in Digital Discovery. Congrats Mike!
(08/2023) I have been awarded the prestigious Royal Academy of Engineering Research Fellowship!
(08/2023) Aaron will be presenting our paper on multimodal sensing for laboratory tasks at IEEE CASE.
(08/2023) I have started my new position as a Lecturer (Asssistant Professor) in Robotics and Chemistry Automation at the University of Liverpool!
(07/2023) I gave an invited talk at KCL’s ML/RL Group within the Department of Informatics on Creating the Next Generation of Intelligent Robotic Assistants.
(06/2023) Our paper Autonomous biomimetic solid dispensing using a dual-arm robotic manipulator has been accepted in Digital Discovery. Congrats Ying!
(05/2023) We visited Rossmore primary school for an outreach activity with years 5 and 6 about Robotics and Chemistry.
(04/2023) I visited KIT, TUM-ICS, TUM-MIRMI and TUD as a DAAD AINet Fellow.
(02/2023) I gave a talk on The Role of Intelligent Robotic Systems in Laboratory Environments at the IEEE WIE UKI Ambassadors’ Scheme Early Career Talk Webinar.
(01/2023) I gave an invited talk at the Laboratory of the Future on using Intelligent Robotics for Material Discovery.
2022
(10/2022) I have been selected as a DAAD AINet Fellow and I am very much looking forward to visit German robotics labs next year!
(10/2022) I will be giving an industrial talk at the Robotics and Automation Exhibition on Robotics for Accelerating Material Discovery.
(10/2022) It was great to meet the future roboticists at Brooke Weston Academy through Skype a Scientist.
(08/2022) I will be giving an invited talk at the Accelerate Conference.
(07/2022) I gave an invited talk at the Monash Robotics Seminar on The Role of Intelligent Robotic Systems in Laboratory Environments.
(06/2022) Our paper Efficient Learning of Inverse Dynamics Models for Adaptive Computed Torque Control was accepted for IROS2022!
(05/2022) Happy to share our research on The New Era of Robotics For Material Discovery as a keynote speaker at the EPSRC Future Continuous Manufacturing and Advanced Crystallisation (CMAC) Research Hub Open Days!
(05/2022) Our paper ARChemist: Autonomous Robotic Chemistry System Architecture is an Outstanding Automation Paper finalist at ICRA 2022!
(04/2022) Excited to kick off robot learning in the Autonomous Chemistry Lab with our paper SOLIS: Autonomous Solubility Screening using Deep Neural Networks. We propose the first fully autonomous solubility screening end-to-end model. Our work was recently accepted at IJCNN 2022 as an Oral presentation!
(02/2022) I have been invited to serve as an Associate Editor for IROS2022!
(01/2022) Our paper ARChemist: Autonomous Robotic Chemistry System Architecture was accepted for ICRA2022! A step forward towards using robotic platforms in Chemistry laboratories :)
(01/2022) I really enjoyed presenting and discussing our work on Robotics for Material Discovery at the Finnish Centre for AI, and seeing some old familiar faces!
2021
(04/2021) I have joined Prof. Andy Cooper’s lab as the lead PDRA on the ERC Synergy grant ADAM.
2020
(02/2020) Successfully defended my Ph.D. thesis!
2019
(12/2019) I have joined the Edinburgh Centre for Robotics as a postdoctoral research associate working under the supervision of Prof. Michael Mistry. Looking forward to working again with this group and to implement more generalisable and efficient learning methods for robot control.
(11/2019) Officially submitted my Ph.D. thesis. Three years of working on deep learning methods to improve the iCub humanoid robot.
(08/2019) Presented our work on “Modelling the Single to Multi Word Transition Using Matrix Completion” at IEEE ICDL-EPIROB 2019.
(07/2019) Presented our work on “Exploring Deep Models for Comprehension of Deictic Gesture-Word Combinations in Cognitive Robotics” at IJCNN 2019.
(07/2019) A beautiful end to three years of fruitful collaborations and stimulating discussions as a Marie-Sklodowska Curie early stage researcher within DCOMM.
(07/2019) Presented our work “On the Use of Deep Models for Gesture-Word Understanding in Developmental Robotics” at the Deictic Communication - Theory and Application Conference.
(05/2019) My last DCOMM secondment will be at the Italian Institute of Technology, working under Dr. Vadim Tikhanoff’s supervision.
2018
(10/2018) My first DCOMM secondment will be at the University of Edinburgh, working under Prof. Timothy Hospedales’ supervision.
(07/2018) Officially transferred to the University of Manchester, where I will be working as part of the newly formed Cognitive Robotics Lab .
2017
(10/2017) DCOMM has officially passed the EU commission’s mid-term review.
(06/2017) Presented our work at the UK robotics week organised at the University of Plymouth.
(06/2017) Presented our work on “Compositionality via gestures in robot language learning” during the first DCOMM conference Language as a form of action.
2016
(10/2016) First kick-off DCOMM meeting in UIB, Mallorca. Looking forward to 3 fruitful years!