Adam A. Stokes: About Me

CV Overview

by aastokes | Aug 27, 2024 | About Me

Professor Adam A. Stokes B.Eng(Hons), M.Res, PhD, MIET, MYAS

Academic Career:

My day-job is Full Professor and Chair of Bioinspired Engineering in the School of Engineering at The University of Edinburgh. I hold degrees in engineering, biomedical science, and analytical chemistry and my primary academic interest is two-fold: 1. Exploring how the natural world has solved problems, and 2. Abstracting and exploring these natural approaches to aid in developing engineering solutions for problems that people care about. I lead a team of approximately 20 people in my interdisciplinary research laboratory – The Soft Systems Group – where we focus on the intersection of next-generation robotics technology, bioelectronics, and bioinspired engineering.

I have secured more than £60M as consortium research funding from EPSRC and InnovateUK, with around £5M directed specifically to my research group. I was the Academic-PI on the £6.5M InnovateUK “Connect-R” grant and was part of the core team for the £40M ORCA Hub. My pioneering research in Soft Robotics and Soft Systems has received over 6600 citations, with publications in leading scientific journals including Science, PNAS, and Advanced Intelligent Systems.

I am one of the four founding Co-Leads of The National Robotarium, the UK centre of excellence in robotics, which was founded as a result of a £20M capital investment from the City Region Deal in Edinburgh for Hubs in Data Driven Innovation. I also serve as the Deputy Director and am a founding member of the Edinburgh Centre for Robotics, we’re recently secured funding for a new Centre for Doctoral Training in “Dependable and Deployable AI for Robotics” which will train ~80 PhD students in this exciting new area.

I serve as a member of the Royal Commission for the Great Exhibition of 1851’s Industry and Engineering Committee, as Associate Editor for the Journal of Soft Robotics, and as Co-Chair of the Steering Committee for the IEEE International Conference on Soft Robotics, which will take place in Lausanne, Switzerland this year.

– 2022-Present Professor and Personal Chair of Bioinspired Engineering, The University of Edinburgh

– 2022-Present Founding Co-Lead of the UK National Robotarium

– 2021-2022 Reader in Engineering, The University of Edinburgh

– 2020 Principal’s Award for Innovation.

– 2019-Present Deputy Head of Research Institute, Institute for Integrated Micro and Nano Systems.

– 2019-2021 Senior Lecturer, School of Engineering, The University of Edinburgh

– 2014 Elected as a Member of the Royal Society of Edinburgh’s Young Academy of Scotland

– 2012-2019 Lecturer, School of Engineering, The University of Edinburgh

– 2010-2012 Harvard University, Fellow, George M. Whitesides Group, Dept of Chemistry and Chemical Biology & The Wyss Institute for Bioinspired Engineering

Entrepreneurial Career:

Outside of the academy, I am a founder of several companies in the health-tech and robotics fields and am currently the Academic in Residence with Archangels Investors Ltd. My leadership in entrepreneurial activities has been recognised by winning the Inaugural Data Driven Entrepreneurship (DDE) Academic Entrepreneurship Award, and the Principal’s Award for Innovation.

– 2023 Formal Appointment as Academic in Residence to ArchAngels Investors Ltd.