Ignazio Maria Viola

WORK HISTORY

EDUCATION

SKILLS

ABOUT IGNAZIO MARIA VIOLA

Ignazio Maria Viola is Professor of Fluid Mechanics and Bioinspired Engineering at the School of Engineering of the University of Edinburgh; Professor of Naval Architecture at the Alma Mater Studiorum University of Bologna; and Distinguished Visiting Professor at Tsinghua University. He is a Fellow of the Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers (SNAME) and Fellow of the Royal Institution of Naval Architects (RINA).He publishes in Nature, Nature Communications, eLife, Renewable Energy, Journal of Fluid Mechanics, Ocean Engineering, etc. For his publications, he was awarded two RINA Medals of Distinction and one Medal of Exceptional Merit, a Gold Rating for the Best Journal Article by the International Marine Energy Journal, as well as the Covid-19 Hero Medal of the School of Engineering of the University of Edinburgh for his significant contribution to solving Covid-19 challenges.He contributed to securing grants for about £20m, about half of which as Principal Investigator. Between his major research projects, he leads the ERC Consolidator Grant fellowship ‘Dandidrone: Dandelion-Inspired Drones for Swarm Sensing,’ and the ARIA grant ‘SEED: Self-degrading Environmental Exploration Drones.’ He led the EPSRC project ‘Morphing Blades: New-Concept Turbine Blades for Unsteady Load Mitigation,’ which led to two patents and an ongoing collaboration with the tyre manufacturer Michelin. He was the Edinburgh co-lead of two Centres for Doctoral Training in Wind & Marine Energy Systems & Structure, and he is the Director of Responsible Research and Innovation of the latter.He is the Functional Vice President Alt. of Knowledge Management of SNAME, and a member of several executive committees, including the Group on Energy Research and Applications of the American Physical Society, the UK Fluids Network, and the UK Robotics and Autonomous Systems Network. He is Associate Editor of the Journal of Ocean Engineering and Marine Energy (published by Springer) and a member of the Executive Committee of two conference series: the ECCOMAS International Conferences on Computational Methods in Marine Engineering (MARINE), and the symposiums in Innovation in High-Performance Sailing Yachts (Innov\'Sail). He was Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Sailing Technology between 2016 and 2025 (published by SNAME), and Associate Editor of the Journal of Offshore Mechanics and Arctic Engineering between 2023 and 2025 (published by ASME).