Rate My Professor Min Pan

Professor Min Pan is a Professor of Intelligent Machine Systems and a Reader in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Bath's Department of Mechanical Engineering. She obtained her PhD in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Bath in 2012. After her PhD, she conducted postdoctoral research at the same institution before serving as an Assistant Professor in the School of Mechanical Engineering at Zhejiang University from 2014 to 2015. In 2016, she joined the University of Bath as a Lecturer in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, progressing to her current positions.

Professor Pan's research interests encompass intelligent machine systems, modelling of dynamic systems, control and robotics, efficient fluid power control, soft actuation, control and robotics, and control of fluid-borne noise in fluid power systems. She serves as Principal Investigator on several funded projects, including the Advanced Research and Inventions Agency (ARIA) grant of £2.2 million for "A New Analytical Framework for Developing Dexterous Soft Robotic Manipulators" (2025–2028), UK Research and Innovation's "Digital Hydraulic Fluid Power Technologies for Decarbonising Off-road Vehicles" (2024–2028), the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council's "IAA - Smart Fluid Inertance Technology for Improving Hydraulic Energy Efficiency" (2022–2025), and The Leverhulme Trust's "Soft Muscles with Inherent Sensing, Locomotion and Self-Healing Capabilities" (2020–2022).

Professor Pan is a UKRI Future Leaders Fellow and an ARIA Robot Dexterity Creator. She has held Fellowships from the Royal Academy of Engineering (2019–2021) and The Leverhulme Trust (2020–2022), and received the IMechE Donald Julius Groen Prize in 2014 for outstanding achievements in mechatronics, informatics, and control. Her publications include "Self-Healing and Reprocessable Soft Robots using 3D Digital Light Printing" (Yuan et al., Advanced Science, 2026), "Novel adaptive sliding-mode control of digital hydraulic systems with nonlinear flow prediction and friction identification" (Xu et al., Measurement, 2026), "Performance Improvement of a High-Speed On/Off Valve-Piloted Proportional Valve via Nonlinear Modeling and Load-Adaptive Sliding Mode Control" (Zhong et al., IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering, 2026), and "A Review of Switched Inertance Hydraulic Converter Technology" (Pan, ASME Journal of Dynamic Systems, Measurement, and Control, 2020). Her research has been featured on the front covers of journals such as Advanced Science, Advanced Energy Materials, Advanced Materials Technologies, Advanced Intelligent Systems, iScience, and Soft Matter, demonstrating significant impact in the field.