Soft Multimodal Neurointerfaces
Our team member and PhD candidate Niloufar Behzadpour attended this year’s Focused Ultrasound Neuromodulation Conference held in Paris between July 22-24, 2026.
Niloufar presented her poster “Developing an integrated in vitro platform for exploring multimodal interaction of low-intensity focused ultrasound and electrical stimulation” during the conference, enjoyed stimulating scientific discussions, and came back full of motivation and new ideas!
The SoMa Lab has been teaming up with the Circular Design Lab, media artist Marlot Meyer, and the curator Pierre Wolter (Gallery Art Claims Impulse) to form Somaric Circuits.
This is a result of an arts&science project at the intersection of neuro-electronics and interactive media art, funded by the WKD programme of the Fraunhofer Gesellschaft in order to translate hard science in a public experience.
The Somatic Circuits team was present this July at the Festival of the Future (Festival der Zukunft), hosted by the Deutsches Museum in Munich, to discuss our interactive exhibition that turns neuronal communication into a physical experience. Visitors could test our inflatable wearables at our booth or join our discussion “Creativity in Dialogue: What unites and divides artists and scientists?” on the 2nd of July at 14:15 in the Future Box, Deutsches Museum.
Special thanks to Raphael Panskus and Ridley Vaughan for representing the SoMa team in Munich!
Read the relevant article on our Fraunhofer IZM webpage: https://www.izm.fraunhofer.de/en/news/somatic-circuits.html
The SoMa Lab was present this year at the 2D-NL Conference which was held in Eindhoven, The Netherlands between the 26 and 27 of May 2026.
Our PI, Vasiliki Giagka, gave an invited talk on the topic of “Optically transparent neural interfaces based on transfer-free multilayer graphene“.
Our postdoc, Dr. Christos Pavlou, presented his poster “Transparent Graphene MEAs for Ex Vivo and Implantable Neural Interfaces” and won the best poster award! Congratulations, Christos!
Our PI, Vasiliki Giagka, travelled recently to Xi’an, China to give an invited talk at the 4th Nature Conference on Flexible Electronics – Transforming Technology for Human Health.
Her talk “Conformal Neuroelectronics”, brought together everything our group at Deflt University of Technology and at Fraunhofer IZM has been working toward: soft, multimodal, neural interfaces that combine electrical, optical and acoustic modalities to interface with the nervous system in a way that is precise, stable and built to last.
On the 30th of March 2026, our group member, Andrada Iulia Velea, defended her PhD and was awarded the title of Dr. Congratulations, Dr. Velea!
Link to the thesis: https://repository.tudelft.nl/record/uuid:651b9991-aeac-4320-820f-9320adf8433a
On the 25th of February 2026, our group member, Konstantina Kolovou-Kouri, defended her PhD and was awarded the title of Dr. Congratulations, Dr. Kolovou-Kouri!
Link to the thesis: https://repository.tudelft.nl/record/uuid:be5e8699-b090-4cae-8920-a71ff1e9c1e1
The SoMa Lab participated this year at the Gordon Research Seminar and Gordon Research Conference on Neuroelectronic Interfaces.
During GRS, Andrada Iulia Velea gave an oral presentation on the topic of Bimodal Neural Interfaces: Material Insights for the Seamless Operation across Electrical and Acoustic Domains.
Our PI, Vasiliki Giagka, joined a panel to discuss “Navigating the Neurotech Landscape: Research, Entrepreneurship, Industry, and Career Opportunities” alongside Prof. Thomas Stieglitz, Prof. George Malliaras, and Prof. Maria Asplund.
During GRC, Raphael Panskus and Dr. Christos Pavlou presented their posters on Ultrasound-transparent neural interfaces for multimodal interaction and Transparent Graphene Microelectrode Arrays for Ex Vivo and Implantable Neural Interfaces, respectively.
Former SoMa members Nerea Alvarez de Eulate Llano (currently @ IMB-CNM, CSIC, PIs: Dr. Anton Guimerà and Prof. Jose Garrido) and Gonzalo Léon González (currently @Chalmers, PI: Prof. Maria Asplund), who are now pursuing their PhDs, were also attending, so it felt like a small reunion!
The conference took place in beautiful Tuscany, Italy and it was a great moment of getting together with colleagues and friends from around the world to discuss science and engineering!
GRC is definitely one of our favourites, we will be coming back!
Vasiliki Giagka was recently interviewed by Bioelectronics Drop as part of the new video series Bioelectronics Talk, which features leading researchers in biomedical engineering. In this interview, she talked about research, neuroelectronics, the European neurotechnology landscape and more. The interview is available on Youtube and Spotify and we hope you will enjoy it as much as we did!
Vasiliki Giagka recently returned to MRS in Boston, where she kicked off a session on neuroelectronic interfaces with a talk on robust and conformal hybrid electronics. In addition, the group’s work NanoBlooms was selected among the 50 finalists of the Science as Art competition.
These beautiful blooms were created during a Friday afternoon experiment of Maria Camarena Perez while experimenting with the graphene growth on molybdenum catalysts and are planted on a SiO2 “soil”.
In November 2025, the DBI2 consortium organised a joint retreat together with the INTENSE project and the SoMa Lab was present!
Vasiliki Giagka gave a Keynote talk during the INTENSE project retreat on the topic of Conformal Neural Interfaces for Chronic Applications, and Niloufar Behzadpour won the best poster presenter award! Congratulations, Niloufar!
Over three days, participants reflected on the major scientific milestones of the DBI2 and INTENSE. The programme included a dedicated career development session for early‑career researchers. Two thought‑provoking panel discussions focused on Lessons Learned from INTENSE to DBI2 and Generative AI for Science and Society.
The retreat concluded with cross‑theme discussions that helped shape DBI2’s future research directions.
Find out more about our DBI2 project here: https://dbi2.nl
SoMa Lab 