Pietro Valdastri PhD

Pietro Valdastri, Ph.D. Laurea degree cum Laude in Electronic Engineering from the University of Pisa in 2001 and a Ph.D. degree cum Laude in Biomedical Engineering from Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna in 2006, with Prof. Paolo Dario as primary advisor. After the Ph.D., Valdastri served as Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering at the BioRobotics Institute of Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna for three years, focusing on implantable medical devices and surgical robotics. In 2011, Valdastri moved to Vanderbilt University, where Valdastri became Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering, with secondary appointments in the Electrical Engineering Department and in the Division of Gastroenterology, Hepatology, and Nutrition of the Vanderbilt University Medical Center. At Vanderbilt University, Valdastri founded the Science and Technologies Of Robotics in Medicine (STORM) Lab (https://www.stormlabuk.com/), a research lab focusing on medical capsule robots for gastrointestinal endoscopy and abdominal surgery. In 2016, Valdastri moved to Leeds as Chair of Robotics and Autonomous Systems with a primary appointment in the School of Electronic and Electrical Engineering and a secondary appointment in the School of Mechanical Engineering. In Leeds, Valdastri continue to direct the STORM Lab and Valdastri actively involved in the Surgical Technologies Research Group.

Valdastri a Royal Society Wolfson Research Fellow, a Senior Member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), the Editor for Medical and Rehabilitation Robotics of the IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, a member of the Technology Committee of the European Association for Endoscopic Surgery (EAES), and a member of the steering committee of the International Society for Medical Innovation and Technology (iSMIT).

Valdastri co-founded a successful medical start-up (WinMedical, www.winmedical.com, now part of AB Medica), and received several prestigious awards and grants, including the ERC Consolidator Grant with the proposal “NoLiMiTs – Novel Lifesaving Magnetic Tentacles” in 2019, the Wolfson Research Merit Award, and the Hamlyn Symposium Surgical Robot Challenge Award in 2016, the NSF CAREER Award with the proposal “Lifesaving Capsule Robots” in 2015, the Sensys 2014 Best Paper Award, the OLYMPUS Best Laparoscopy/Robotic Paper Award 2013, the OLYMPUS ISCAS Best Paper Award 2012, the ASME Design of Medical Devices Conference Best Paper Award 2012, the Hamlyn Symposium on Medical Robotics Best Oral Presentation Award 2011, and the European Association of Endoscopic Surgery Best Technology Presentation Award 2011.