Tom Ranzani received a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Pisa, Italy. He did his Ph.D. at the BioRobotics Institute of the Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies. In 2014, he joined the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences as a postdoctoral fellow. He is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Biomedical Engineering, and in the Division of Materials Science and Engineering at Boston University, where he established the Morphable Biorobotics Lab in 2018. In 2020 he was awarded the NIH Trailblazer Award for New and Early Stage Investigators. His research focuses on soft and bioinspired robotics with applications ranging from underwater exploration to surgical and wearable devices. He is interested in expanding the potential of soft robots across different scales to develop novel reconfigurable soft-bodied robots capable of operating in environments where traditional robots cannot.

Seung‑Kyun Kang is an Associate Professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Seoul National University (SNU) since 2022, previously serving as Assistant Professor in the same department from 2019 to 2022. Before joining SNU, he was an Assistant Professor in the Department of Bio and Brain Engineering at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) from 2017 to 2019. He earned his BS and PhD degrees in Materials Science and Engineering from SNU in 2006 and 2012, respectively, graduating with early and honors. He conducted postdoctoral research at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign from 2012 to 2016 and at Northwestern University from 2016 to 2017. He is an expert in soft and green electronics, particularly contributing to the development of biodegradable electronics for biomedical implants and disposable electronics. Recently, he has been focusing on researching lifetime-controlled robotic systems, including biodegradable robots. S.-K. Kang can be reached by email at kskg7227@snu.ac.kr.

Luisa Petti received her M.Sc. in Electronic Engineering from Politecnico di Milano (Italy) in 2011. She obtained her Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from ETH Zurich (Switzerland) in 2016 with a thesis entitled “Metal oxide semiconductor thin-film transistors for flexible electronics”, for which she won the ETH medal. After a short post-doc at ETH Zurich, she joined first Cambridge Display Technology Ltd in October 2016 and then FlexEnable Ltd in December 2017 in Cambridge, UK as a Scientist. In 2018 she joined the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, where she is Associate Professor in Electronics and Head of the Sensor System Technology Lab since March 2021. Luisa’s current research includes the design, fabrication, and characterization of flexible, soft, and sustainable sensors, energy harvesters, and thin-film devices and circuits. She has published more than 150 scientific papers and has 1 granted patent on stretchable displays. Luisa is also associate editor-in-chief of the IEEE Journal of Flexible Electronics and general co-chair of the IEEE International Flexible Electronics Technology Conference 2024. In 2019, she has been awarded the international IEEE EDS Early Career Award for her early career achievements in the field of flexible electron devices.

Virgilio Mattoli received his Laurea degree in chemistry (with honours) from the University of Pisa and the Diploma in Chemistry from the Scuola Normale Superiore of Pisa in 2000. In 2005 he received his PhD in bio-engineering (with honours) from Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna. In summer 2004 he was visiting researcher at the University of Stanford, Center for Design Research, working on sensors and controls modules for biomimetic robotics applications. In 2005 and 2008 he was a short term visiting researcher at Waseda University (Tokyo, Japan) working on a bio-inspired mini-robot and on development of ultrathin freestanding polymeric films. From June 2008 to October 2009 he obtained a temporary position of Assistant Professor of bioengineering at the Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna (SSSA). From November 2009 to July 2015, he has been a Team Leader of the Smart Materials Platform in the Center for Micro-BioRobotics of the Italian Institute of Technology (IIT). In August 2015, he obtained a permanent position as Researcher Technologist at the same center. His main research interests include: smart and bio-inspired materials, soft electronics, tattoo electronics, functional microfabrication, nanomaterials, miniaturised sensor systems and biorobotics. He is currently involved in several research projects on these topics, including the EU FET Project 5D NanoPrinting and the EU EIC challenge project IV-Lab, of which he is the coordinator. He is author or co-author of more than 180 articles on ISI journals about 50 invited talks, and of several conferences communications/proceedings and deposited patents.

Prof. Mirko Kovac is director of the Aerial Robotics Laboratory and full professor at Imperial College London. He is also heading the Laboratory of Sustainability Robotics at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (Epfl) and the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology (Empa) in Zürich. His research group focusses on the development of novel mobile robots for distributed sensing and autonomous manufacturing in complex natural environments. Prof. Kovac's particular specialisation is in robot design, hardware development and multi-modal sensor mobility. Before his appointment in London, he was post-doctoral researcher at Harvard University and he obtained his PhD at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL). He received his undergraduate degree in Mechanical Engineering from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETHZ) in 2005. Since 2006, he has presented his work in more than 100 peer reviewed publications in leading conferences and journals, has won several best paper awards and has delivered over 100 keynote and invited lectures. He also regularly acts as advisor to government, investment funds and industry on robotics opportunities.

Gaia Tomasello received her Ph.D. in computational chemistry at the University of Bologna. She carried out postdoctoral research as an Alexander von Humboldt fellow at the department of Physics at Freie Universität (Berlin) in the field of excited state dynamics and then purchasing further her research activity at the Polytechnique Montréal studying the properties of conducting polymers for applications in nano- and bioelectronics. She joined Wiley in 2019 as peer review editor and working currently within the Department of Publishing Development as Editor in Chief of the journal Advanced Electronic Materials and deputy of journal the Physica Status Solidi A.