PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Perla Maiolino

Perla Maiolino is an Oxford robotics researcher whose work connects tactile sensing with soft robotics. Her PhD work included the development of CySkin artificial robot skin. She coauthored research on capacitive robot sensors, touch-sensor translation and diffusion-based pose estimation. After research at Cambridge, she joined Oxford in 2018 and gave an invited keynote at IROS in 2025. As of October 2026, she is an Associate Professor in Engineering Science and Deputy Director of the Oxford Robotics Institute, where she leads the Soft Robotics Laboratory.

Now at
Oxford Robotics Institute and Brasenose College

Timeline

  1. 2013

    A flexible tactile system

    In 2013, she coauthors a paper on a flexible, large-scale capacitive tactile system for robots. Its design uses a thin 3D-fabric dielectric. During her PhD, she develops a distributed tactile sensor for robots and technological solutions for artificial robot skin (CySkin).

  2. October 2017–September 2018

    Cambridge soft robotics research

    From October 2017 to September 2018, she works in Cambridge’s Biologically Inspired Robotics Lab on soft robotics and soft tactile perception.

  3. 2018

    Genoa degrees and Oxford appointment

    Her degrees are a BEng, MEng and PhD from the University of Genova’s Department of Informatics, Bioengineering, Robotics and Systems Engineering. In September 2018, she joins Oxford as Associate Professor in Engineering Science and a member of the Oxford Robotics Institute.

  4. November 2024

    Touch-to-Touch translation

    In November 2024, she coauthors Touch-to-Touch Translation, which maps camera-based Digit images to capacitive CySkin data.

  5. 2025

    An IROS keynote

    In 2025, she gives an invited keynote at IROS.

  6. 2026

    Diffusion for tactile pose estimation

    In 2026, she coauthors a diffusion-based inverse model for estimating object pose from distributed tactile sensor observations. It combines generated hypotheses with a particle filter and is validated in simulated and real-world planar pose-estimation settings.

  7. As of October 2026

    Oxford robotics leadership

    As of October 2026, she is Associate Professor in Oxford’s Department of Engineering Science and Deputy Director of the Oxford Robotics Institute, where she leads the Soft Robotics Laboratory.

Career

  1. Since 2018University of OxfordAssociate Professor
  2. NowOxford Robotics InstituteDeputy Director; Principal Investigator, Soft Robotics Laboratory
  3. NowBrasenose CollegeTutorial Fellow
  4. 2017–2018University of CambridgePostdoctoral Researcher

Education

  1. University of GenoaBEng in Robotics and Automation
  2. University of GenoaMEng in Robotics and Automation
  3. University of GenoaPhD in Robotics

From the biography.

Checked career sources: ori.ox.ac.uk, eng.ox.ac.uk, bnc.ox.ac.uk.

Colleagues

People with dated positions at the same organization in the same years.

Sources and credits

Photo: We have no published photo of Perla Maiolino yet. Send us a free-licensed photo.

  1. A Flexible and Robust Large Scale Capacitive Tactile System for Robots arxiv.org. Checked 27 October 2026.
  2. Oxford Robotics Institute | People - Perla Maiolino ori.ox.ac.uk. Checked 27 October 2026.
  3. Perla Maiolino - People - Engineering Science Department eng.ox.ac.uk. Checked 27 October 2026.
  4. Touch-to-Touch Translation -- Learning the Mapping Between Heterogeneous Tactile Sensing Technologies arxiv.org. Checked 27 October 2026.
  5. IAS-15_2026-Perla Maiolino - AI4I ai4i.it. Checked 27 October 2026.
  6. Diffusion-based Inverse Model of a Distributed Tactile Sensor for Object Pose Estimation arxiv.org. Checked 27 October 2026.
  7. Oxford Robotics Institute | People @ ORI ori.ox.ac.uk. Checked 27 October 2026.