Dr. Panagiotis N. Koustoumpardis is an Assistant Professor at the Mechanical Engineering & Aeronautics Dept., University of Patras, Greece, where he received a Mechanical Eng. Diploma (1998) and a Ph.D. degree in Robotics. He teaches in the courses of ‘Robotics’, ‘Industrial Automation’, ‘Electrical Circuits and Electrical Machines’, ‘Kinematics of Mechanisms and Machines and ‘Dynamics of Mechanisms and Machines’. From 2004 to 2006 he was an Instructor (Robotics course) at the Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, Technological Educational Institute of Patras, while from 2018-2021 he was an Instructor in the course ‘Kinematics of Mechanisms and Machines’ at the University of Patras. His main research interests are robotics, intelligent control, biomimetic design of grippers, machine learning, neural networks, intelligent sensor fusion and machine vision for robotics applications, autonomous robotics for mining, and intelligent robotic handling and force control of non-rigid materials as well as human-robot collision, cooperation for handling non-rigid materials, and design-control of mobile and aerial robots. He has been involved in most of the Robotics Group research projects and he was coordinator of two projects. He is partner (scientifically responsible) of a Horizon Project (2024-2027) concerning autonomous robotic exploration and extraction of deep mineral deposits. He has supervised and co-supervised more than 60 final diploma theses and MSc theses of undergraduate students from three different departments of the University of Patras. He authored 54 publications in journals, book chapters, and conferences. He was an Associate Editor and Guest Editor in three international journals and special issues, Editor in one book, co-chair in one international conference. He is reviewer of 43 international journals. He was a reviewer at 27 international conferences and a member of the International Scientific Committee of an international conference. He was a basic member of the organizing committee of the 1^st and 2^nd Hellenic Robotic Conference. He is the founder and scientific director of the educational robotics voluntary action Robots@UP at the University of Patras. He is a judge and coach in educational robotics competitions, founding member (from 2001) of Robotics Club and scientific supervisor (from 2019) of Robotics Club. He is area coordinator of the organizing and scientific committee of the Open Technologies in Education (Open Technologies Alliance), and coordinator of the Open Design/Hardware/WiFi working group. He is a member of Textile ETP Expert Community, of the Greek Society of Mechanical & Electrical Engineers, and of Technical Chamber of Greece.