Rate My Professor Antonio Forte

Dr. Antonio Forte served as Associate Professor in the Department of Engineering at King’s College London from August 2024 to August 2025, following his role as Assistant Professor from October 2021 to August 2024. He led the Reconfigurable and Adaptive Designs Lab (RADlab), focusing on mechanical metamaterials, soft robotics, robotic matter, optimization, machine learning, origami and kirigami structures, multistable mechanisms, and electronic-free oscillators. His research develops disruptive designs addressing real-world challenges, including novel robotic grippers like TangleHold and HEXGRIP, wearable robots, shape-shifting materials guided by human signals, and fluidic circuits for soft robots. Forte’s prior appointments include Marie Curie Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard University’s John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (2018–2021), where he worked on mechanical metamaterials and soft systems in the Bertoldi Group; Postdoctoral Researcher in Bioengineering at Imperial College London (2016–2018), applying machine learning to auditory perception; and PhD in Mechanical Engineering from Imperial College London (2011–2015), investigating human brain biomechanics. He holds Bachelor and MSc degrees in Mechanical Engineering, and a Master’s in Signal Processing, from the University of Salento, Italy.

Forte has earned major awards such as the UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship (2023, commenced June 2024) for the NARMM project on neural-driven, active, and reconfigurable mechanical metamaterials; EPSRC Impact Accelerator Awards (2023, 2024, 2025); KCL Commercial Development Fund (2024); NMES Teaching Award (2023); and EU Marie Curie Individual Fellowship (2018). His influential publications include “Inflatable Origami: Multi-modal Deformation via Multistability” (Advanced Functional Materials, 2022), “Inverse Design of Inflatable Soft Membranes Through Machine Learning” (Advanced Functional Materials, 2022), “Chiral Mechanical Metamaterials for Tunable Optical Transmittance” (Advanced Functional Materials, 2023), “Frequency-Controlled Fluidic Oscillators for Soft Robots” (Advanced Science, 2024), “Complex Deformation in Soft Cylindrical Structures via Programmable Sequential Instabilities” (Advanced Materials, 2024), and “Programmable Entanglement of Granular Mechanical Metamaterials” (Advanced Functional Materials, 2025). These contributions advance soft robotics, active materials, and applications in healthcare, industry, and wearables. He has secured funding from EPSRC, MRC, and KCL, and developed teaching modules on mechanics, robotics, and controls at KCL.