Head of the Textile Robotics Lab
The BioRobotics Institute
Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna
Leonardo Cappello is Assistant Professor at the Biorobotics Institute, Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, working on textile materials for robotic applications. His research focus includes prosthetics, artificial sensory feedback, wearables, haptics, rehabilitation robotics, and neurosciences.
He obtained his BS degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Florence with the thesis “The Design of Lower Limb Prosthesis for Developing Countries” in 2009. This work was awarded by Engineers Without Borders – Florence with the “Tattarillo” Award 2012 – Appropriate technologies and South of the World.
In 2011 he obtained MS degree in Biomedical Engineering with the thesis “Design of patella loading device for use during knee surgery” from the University of Florence. This thesis was written during the internship LLLP/Erasmus Placement at the European Centre for Knee Research, Smith & Nephew, Leuven (Belgium).
In 2012 he was recruited as a Research Fellow by the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT) and in 2013 he was enrolled in the PhD course in “Robotics, Cognition and Interaction Technologies” in IIT – Robotics, Brain and Cognitive Sciences department. During this period he collaborated with research teams at the University of Minnesota (Minneapolis, US) and the University of Bristol (Bristol, UK).
From 2014 to 2015 he was visiting PhD student at the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering of Nanyang Technological University (Singapore) in Prof. Lorenzo Masia’s robotics lab working on the design and development of a wearable assistive soft exoskeleton for the upper limb.
In 2016-2017 he was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University (Cambridge, US), School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, advised by Prof. Conor Walsh, and working on a textile-based soft robotic glove.
Moreover, he was Postdoctoral Researcher from 2017 to 2022 at the BioRobotics Institute, Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, in the Artificial Hands Area, advised by Prof. Christian Cipriani, and working on advanced prosthetic technologies and supplementary sensory feedback for the upper limb.