Dr. Giorgio-Serchi is a Chancellor's Fellow at the University of Edinburgh Institute of Integrated Micro and Micro Systems where he works on the design and control of underwater vehicles in rough weather conditions as well as control/sensing of compliant elastic mechatronics systems. He is also involved in the study of variable stiffness actuation for enhanced propulsive efficiency and shape-morphing aquatic systems. He holds a Laurea (MSc equivalent) in Marine Science & Technology from the University of Pisa and a PhD in Computational Fluid Dynamics from the University of Leeds. In 2011 he was awarded a Marie-Curie Fellowship to undertake research in bioinspired aquatic propulsion at the Centre for Sea Technologies and Marine Robotics of the Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, Italy. There, he designed and patented an octopus-inspired, tendon-driven soft robot with multi-modal locomotion capabilities. From 2015 to 2018 Francesco was a Research Fellow at the Fluid Structure Interaction Group of the University of Southampton during which time he worked on thrust augmentation of aquatic self-propelled systems via active shape control.