Marco Castellaro

Marco Castellaro is a Research Fellow in Biomedical Engineering at the University of Padova.

 

He earned a Ph.D. in Bioengineering under the supervision of Prof. Alessandra Bertoldo with a thesis entitled “Quantitative neuroimaging of perfusion with Arterial Spin Labelling: deconvolution and physiology-based models”. He was a post-doctoral fellow at the Department of Information Engineering, at the Padova Neuroscience Center of the University of Padova and at the Department of Neuroscience, Medicine and movement of the University of Verona. He is currently a Research Fellow at the Department of Information Engineering at the University of Padova.

 

His research interests mainly include artificial intelligence applied to MRI, to study perfusion, brain clearance and related disorders exploiting both medical images and biomedical signals.

Mattia Veronese

Mattia Veronese is Associate Professor in Biomedical Engineering at the Department of Information Engineering, University of Padua and Honorary Senior Lecturer in Neuroimaging at King’s College London.

 

He is a biomedical engineering by training and holds a PhD in PET kinetic modelling. His main research interest is related to the development and validation of molecular neuroimaging biomarkers and to their use for drug development and precision medicine. With over 15 years of experience and 200+ peer-reviewed publications in analysing high-dimensional brain imaging data and large observational cohorts, his work focuses on transforming complex information into robust and clinically meaningful indicators.

Mariagrazia Ranzini

Mariagrazia Ranzini graduated in Psychology in 2004 and obtained a PhD in Psychology from the University of Pavia in 2010. She worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Bologna, University of Padua, and Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB). From 2020 to 2023, she was a Marie Curie Fellow (Individual Fellowship) at the University of Padua. Since 2025 she has been serving as Associate Professor at the Department of General Psychology (DPG) at the University of Padova.

 

Mariagrazia Ranzini’s scientific research focuses primarily on the field of cognitive psychology. Her main research area is numerical cognition, specifically investigating how attention, memory and action processes contribute to the mental representation and processing of numerical, spatial and temporal quantities. She also studies synesthesia, embodied cognition, attention deficits and calculation deficits. She conducts her research using behavioural investigation methods, such as analysing accuracy, reaction times and eye movements, as well as the effects of prismatic adaptation and optokinetic stimulation, and hand kinematics. She also employs neuroimaging techniques (EEG, MEG, fNIRS): in particular, she has recently initiated a series of studies on the neural correlates common to quantity processing and manual actions (e.g. pointing, grasping objects) using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS).

Sabrina Brigadoi

Sabrina Brigadoi is Associate Professor at the Department of Developmental Psychology and Socialization at the University of Padova. She studied Bioengineering before receiving her PhD in Psychological Sciences from the University of Padova, under the supervision of Prof. Roberto Dell’Acqua. She then worked as a postdoctoral fellow first at UCL in London in the Biomedical Optics Research Laboratory and then back in Padova.

 

Her research interests are focused on both advancing the applicability of diffuse optical techniques in both infant and adult populations and applying these techniques to study both pathological and healthy brain processes. She is interested in easing the use of fNIRS for all users, providing guidelines and tools, such as Array Designer, which could help users to objectively design their probe layout. She is also interested in applying fNIRS/DOT techniques to study cognitive processes in the healthy population, aiming to study cognitive functions in ecological settings. Her current research interests aim at evaluating the impact of glycemic variability and tight glycemic control on brain hemodynamics in the very preterm population and their impact on neurodevelopmental outcome, combining optical techniques, EEG and clinical and behavioral measures.

Aron Emmi

Currently, Aron Emmi serves as Assistant Professor of Human Anatomy at the Institute of Human Anatomy, Department of Neuroscience of the University of Padova, where he has previously obtained his degree and doctoral degree (PhD) and completed his post-graduate training in neuropathology and clinical neuroanatomy. He have also undergone post-doctoral training in forensic neuropathology.

 

His research activity focuses on the discovery and validation of central and peripheral neuropathological biomarkers for neurodegenerative diseases, particularly Parkinson’s Disease. Other research interests include clinical neuroanatomy of the human brainstem, nervous control of respiratory centers, infectious and inflammatory pathology of the brain and its relationship with neurodegeneration.

 

In the last 5 years Aron Emmi has published 50+ peer-reviewed articles in international journals in the field of neuroscience, neuropathology and human anatomy and presented his research activity as a speaker at over 60 national and international conferences. He serves as ad-hoc reviewer for several high-impact scientific journals (Nature NPJ Parkinson’s Disease, Movement Disorders, Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry, Neurobiology of Disease). He have co-authored 4 academic textbooks for students and specialists on neuroanatomy and microscopic anatomy.

 

Aron Emmi is a member of several national and international scientific organizations, including the Royal College of Pathologists, the European Confederation of Neuropathological Societies, and the italian group for neuromorphology.

Marco Mainardi

Marco Mainardi is an Associate Professor of Physiology at University of Padua.

 

His training in biological research started with a master’s degree in molecular biology at University of Pisa (2006), where he also received an Honors degree in Biology after completing the graduate course at Scuola Normale Superiore. Then, he received his PhD Neuroscience, still from Scuola Normale Superiore (2010), after working under the supervision of prof.s Lamberto Maffei, Matteo Caleo, and Tommaso Pizzorusso on the effect of environmental stimuli on synaptic plasticity, using in vivo electrophysiology, imaging, and biochemistry. He then continued to explore these topics with a postdoc at the Neuroscience Institute of the National Research Council. In 2014, he moved to the Physiology Institute of Catholic University in Rome with an assistant professor position. While getting proficient in patch-clamp electrophysiology and coimmunoprecipitation techniques, he contributed to elucidate the effect of metabolic stressors, such as a hyperlipidic diet, in curbing synaptic plasticity. In 2017, Marco moved back to Scuola Normale Superiore, where he became assistant professor in Antonino Cattaneo’s lab, where he was introduced to the design and validation of genetically encoded tools for synapse labeling and analysis, which he used to create maps of in vivo synaptic plasticity in the hippocampus, as well as to analyze the variations in the molecular composition of synapses in response to learning. In 2019, Marco obtained his first independent position as a researcher of the Neuroscience Institute of the National Research Council, where he was promoted senior investigator before moving to University of Padua in 2023.

 

Marco’s current research interests are focused on understanding how synapses are affected by physiological variations in sensory inputs as well as by pathological states, including Alzheimer’s disease and neuroinflammation. To answer his scientific questions, he employs a combination of genetically encoded reporters and probes, behavioral testing, electrophysiology, imaging, and biochemistry in preclinical models. His research is supported by grants from the Ministry of University and Research, as well as from private charities, such as AirAlzh (Italian Association for Research on Alzheimer’s).

 

Marco’s ultimate goal as a researcher is to make contributions which can be truly useful to ameliorating the condition of diseased people, by exploiting basic research to indicate new potential targets for the therapy of neurodevelopmental and neurodegenerative diseases.

 

Scopus link: https://www.scopus.com/authid/detail.uri?authorId=26424686300
Google Scholar link: https://scholar.google.it/citations?user=hkEBXloAAAAJ&hl=it

Stefano De Marchi

Stefano De Marchi is full professor of Numerical Analysis at the Department of Medicine in Padova.

 

He received the degree in Mathematics in 1987 from the University of Padova, the master’s degree in Mathematics and Computer Science in 1990 from the University of Padova and the PhD in Computational Mathematics in 1994, ciclo VI, Consorzio Nord-Orientale.

 

He is author and co-author of more than 95 scientific papers, many of them in approximation theory, multivariate polynomial interpolation, approximation by radial basis functions with applications to medical image reconstruction, rational interpolation and quasi Monte Carlo compression.

 

He is one of the discoverers of the so called “Padua points“, which are the only set of quasi-optimal interpolation points explicitly known on the square, for polynomial interpolation of total degree.

 

He is managing editor of the open access journal Dolomites Research Notes on Approximation edited by the Padova University Press, co-founder of the research group CAA (Constructive Approximation and Applications) between the Universities of Padova and Verona and founder member of the Rete Italiana di Approssimazione (RITA). He is also author of the books Funzioni Splines Univariate (Forum, Ed. Universitaria Udinese, 2001),  Appunti di Calcolo Numerico (Esculapio Ed. Bologna, 2nd ed. 2016) and Meshfree Approximation for Multi-Asset European and American Option Problems (Aracne Ed. Roma, 2012).

Stefano Masiero

Stefano Masiero is Full Professor in Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at the University of Padova.

 

Present position

Director of the Physical and Rehabilitation Medicine School at the University of Padua.
Chair of Rehabilitation Unit at the Padua University-General Hospital.
Director of Laboratory of Robotic and Bioengineering and Clinical of Movement of Padua University-General Hospital.
Postgraduate Diploma in “Epidemiology and Medical Statistics” at the University of Verona.
During his career, he received several academic awards and funding and published over 200 peer reviewed manuscripts including some book of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation.

 

Major Research Interests:

– Neurorehabilitation with robot-therapy, neurostimulation, etc. in post-stroke subjects

– Functional Electrical Stimulation (FES)  in Neuromusculoskeletal disorders

– Assessment in Neuromusculoskeletal disorders (gait analysis study, Morphometric analysis, etc.)

-Study of Neurophysiological effects of the exercise in neuro-musculoskeletal disorders

– Aquatic therapy and hydrotherapy in neurological diseases (Parkinson disease)

Stefano Tortora

Stefano Tortora is currently Assistant Professor at the Department of Information Engineering of the University of Padova.

 

He obtained a M.Sc. in Biomedical Engineering from Politecnico di Milano, Italy, in 2017, and he received a PhD in Information Engineering from the University of Padova, Italy, in 2021. He then pursued two years of postdoctoral research at the Intelligent Autonomous System laboratory, the University of Padova, Italy. He is currently Assistant Professor at the Department of Information Engineering of the University of Padova, since 2023. He spent 10 months as “visiting student” at the Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule (ETH) in Zurich, and 7 months as “visiting researcher” at the Campus Biotech (École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, EPFL) in Gèneve, in 2016 and 2019 respectively.

 

The research activity of Stefano Tortora has been strongly characterized by a commitment to the emerging field of Neurorobotics. In particular, he has focused on its interdisciplinary engineering and neuroscientific aspects. His research has been passionately dedicated to improving the interaction between users and robotic devices by creating a new paradigm in human-machine interfacing (HMI) fusing multimodal information coming from wearable sensors and robot’s sensors. During the Ph.D. activity, Stefano Tortora worked on the development of hybrid human-machine interfaces (h-HMI) to decode movement intention from wearable sensors. In 2020, Stefano Tortora was among the first researchers in developing recurrent neural networks for gait decoding from electroencephalography data. He proposed and implemented novel probabilistic approaches combining brain and muscular activity to ensure a more reliable control of robotic devices.

 

Currently, his work concerns the integration of these h-HMI with shared-autonomy algorithms for the development of intelligent assistive devices aimed at enhancing the mobility of people with motor impairments. On these topics, Stefano Tortora is currently involved as research fellow in the PNRR PE8 “Age-IT – Ageing Well in an Ageing Society” project (https://ageit.eu/wp/), responsible for the analysis of multimodal EEG-EMG data for the control of a lower limb exoskeleton and other assistive robotic devices via machine learning and deep learning. Additionally, his project on the development of an intelligent lower limb exoskeleton has been recently founded within the PNRR PE1 “FAIR – Future Artificial Intelligence Research” initiative (https://fondazione-fair.it/cascade-calls/).

 

Stefano Tortora is Associate Editor for the European Journal on Artificial Intelligence, Guest Associated Editor and Review Editor for the journal “Frontiers in Neurorobotics”, and Guest Associated Editor for the journal “MDPI Applied Sciences” in the section on “Robotics and Automation”. He is also Publication Chair for the IEEE European Conference on Mobile Robots 2025 (https://ecmr2025.dei.unipd.it/). Since 2021, he is in charge of the course “Sistemi di elaborazione 1” at the Department of Statistical Sciences, and of the course of “Python Programming for Data Science and Engineering” within the Doctoral School of Information Engineering (University of Padova) and the National Doctorate in Robotics and Intelligent Machines (DRIM).

 

Stefano Tortora is one of the Team Managers of the WHi Team and Whi Students Team (University of Padova), participating at the Cybathlon BCI race since 2019. With his teams, Stefano Tortora won 2 gold medals, 1 silver medal and 1 bronze medal in the various Cybathlon editions, and received the BCI Jury Award for the most promising technology at the last Cybathlon 2024 in Zurich.

Stefano Vassanelli

Stefano Vassanelli is Associate professor of Physiology
Lecturer at the Medical, Bioengineering, Pharmacological Sciences and Galilean schools.

 

Biosketch

Stefano Vassanelli graduated cum Laude in Medicine at the University of Padova and his doctoral thesis was awarded with the “Casati” price from the “Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei”. After completing a PhD in molecular biology and pathology he undertook postdoctoral research first at the Oregon Graduate Institute of Science and Technology, Dpt. of Biochemistry, (Portland. Oregon, USA), and then at the Max-Planck Institute for Biochemistry, Dpt. Membrane and Neurophysics (Martinsried, Germany) working on brain-chip interfaces for high-resolution recording of neuronal networks. Since 2001 he is leading the Neurochip laboratory at the University of Padova with main focus on development of high-density neural interfaces and their use for investigation of information processing mechanisms in brain microcircuits.

 

Contact

Deparment of Biomedical Sciences
University of Padova
via Marzolo 3, 35131 Padova, Italy
Tel.: +39 049 8275337
Fax.: +39 049 8275301
Email: stefano.vassanelli@unipd.it
Web site: www.vassanellilab.eu

Teresa Farroni

Teresa Farroni is Full Professor in Developmental Psychology at University of Padua.

 

She has more than twenty years of research experience. She is teaching Developmental Psychology (undergraduate courses) and Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience (master course) both in Italian and in English.

 

Scientific production

More than 50 peer-reviewed papers (all in ISI journals); ore than 100 reviews for more than 20 different ISI journals (including Nature, Neuron, PNAS etc.), project proposals (ERC, Cost Actions, etc.), and official reviewer for ANVUR – National Agency for the Evaluation of the University and Research Systems; reviewer for the following international journals: Nature Neuroscience, Scientific Report (Nature), Proceeding of National Academy of Sciences, Cognition, Developmental Science, Neuropsychologia, Neuron, Brain Research, Psychological Bulletin, Child Development, Cortex, European Journal of Neuroscience, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, PlosOne, European Journal of Developmental Psychology, Visual Cognition, Emotion Review, Biological Psychology, Early Childhood Research Quarterly, Psychological Science. Involvement in research projects dedicated to typical and atypical development (COST Action BM1004: Enhancing the Scientific Study of Early Autism (ESSEA); EC Marie Curie Initial Training Networks: Tracking Early Human Development: From Basic Science to Applications; Excellence Project funded by CARIPARO Foundation (Padua).

 

Awards

Received the 2002 Outstanding Young Scientist Award of the University of Padua (€ 15,000).

In the 2004 awarded prestigious Welcome Trust Career Development Research Fellowship (£ 297,505 GBP), Centre for Brain & Cognitive Development, Birkbeck, UK; 2010-2013 COST Action BM1004: Enhancing the Scientific Study of Early Autism (ESSEA) (509,800 euros).

In the 2010, PI for the Italianpartner for the Marie Curie PhD Studentships in Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience: Tracking EarlyHuman Development: From Basic Science to Applications Funded by the EC Marie Curie Initial Training

Networks: FP7-PEOPLE-2010-ITN PART B Grant Number: 264301

 

Supervision of graduate students and postdoctoral fellows

She is currently supervising 1 PhD student at the University of Padua. I have already successfully supervised 5 PhD students and 4 post doctoral researchers at the same University. Since 2002 she has successfully supervised 35 undergraduate and 25 masters theses at the University of Padua. She has co-supervised 1 international PhD student, with the Centre for Brain & Cognitive Development, Birkbeck, UK within an EC Marie Curie Training Network, and she has co-supervised a further 2 international PhD students within the EC Marie Curie Initial Training Networks: Tracking Early Human Development: From Basic Science to Applications.

 

Major Research interests

Her research is interdisciplinary, spanning the fields of typical and atypical development and of behavioural and neuroimaging studies, from birth (time 0) to adulthood. She has focused on the study of the Social Brain by conducting: (1) field studies of the early development of cognitive processes (memory, attention, etc.), (2) investigations of the origins of the social brain, (3) experiments that formulate research questions both on cognitive and neural levels of analysis

Tito Calì

Tito Calì is Full Professor at the Department of Biomedical Sciences, University of Padova.

 

2017: Assistant Professor, (RTDB) Department of Biomedical Sciences, University of Padova.

2015-2016: Assistant Professor, (RTDA) Department of Biomedical Sciences, University of Padova.

2013-2015: Senior Research Associate, University of Padova.

2009-2013: Junior Research Associate, University of Padova.

2008: PhD Degree “in signi cum laude”, Biochemistry/Molecular Biology, Theodor Kocher institute, University of Bern (CH) and Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB), Bellinzona (CH).

2005: Doctor in Biological Sciences 110/110 “Cum Laude”, Biochemistry/Molecular Biology, University of L’Aquila and Centre d’Immunologie Marseille Luminy (CIML).

 

Selected Publications

Calì T, et al. The ataxia related G1107D mutation of the plasma membrane Ca2+ ATPase isoform 3 affects its interplay with calmodulin and the autoinhibition process. BBA. 2017

Calì T, et al. A new split-GFP-based probe reveals DJ-1 translocation into the mitochondrial matrix to sustain ATP synthesis upon nutrient deprivation. HMG. 2015.

Calì T, et al. A Novel Mutation in Isoform 3 of the Plasma Membrane Ca2+ Pump Impairs Cellular Ca2+ Homeostasis in a Patient with Cerebellar Ataxia and Laminin Subunit 1? Mutations. JBC 2015.

Calì T, et al. Enhanced parkin levels favor ER-mitochondria crosstalk and guarantee Ca2+ transfer to sustain cell bioenergetics. BBA. 2013

Calì T, et al. ?-Synuclein controls mitochondrial calcium homeostasis by enhancing endoplasmic reticulum-mitochondria interactions. JBC. 2012

Zanni G, Calì T, et al. Mutation of plasma membrane Ca2+ ATPase isoform 3 in a family with X-linked congenital cerebellar ataxia impairs Ca2+ homeostasis. PNAS. 2012

Valentina Franceschi

Valentina Franceschi is Associate Professor at the Department of Mathematics of the University of Padua. 

 

I graduated in Mathematics at the University of Bologna in 2012. Within my degree I was selected as international student for an exchange program at Temple University, Philadelphia in 2011. I obtained my PhD in Mathematics in 2016 at the University of Padova.  Between 2016 and 2020 I developed my research through post-doctoral experiences mainly in France, first as research collaborator of the Inria Paris team CAGE, then as Lecteur Hadamard at Université Paris-Sud in 2018 and finally as Marie Sk?odowoska Curie Fellow at Sorbonne Université within the individual project MesuR.

With a formation in pure mathematics, part of my research is now devoted to cortical inspired models for imaging and vision. I am a member of the group “Matematica delle immagini, della visione e delle loro applicazioni” within Unione Matematica Italiana and I participate to the international project RUBIN-VASE, funded by the French national research agency (ANR) on cortical inspired models for vision. I have been invited editor for a special issue on Color representation and cortical-inspired image processing on the of Journal of Mathematical Neuroscience, and I collaborated in the organization of conferences on mathematical imaging and vision.

 

Main Research Interests: 
Mean field cortical inspired models for vision with applications to visual illusions. 
Geometric Analysis with a focus on sub-Riemannian geometry.

 

Publications: 
https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=upg90zYAAAAJ&hl=it&oi=sra

Wolfgang Erb

Wolfgang Erb is an applied mathematician and Associate Professor in numerical analysis at the Department of Mathematics “Tullio Levi-Civita”, University of Padua (Padua, Italy).

 

He received his Ph.D in Mathematics at the Technical University of Munich (Munich, Germany) in 2010. He has been a post-doctoral research fellow at the University of Lübeck (Lübeck, Germany), at the University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt (Eichstätt, Germany) and an assistant professor in mathematics at the University of Hawaii at Manoa (Honolulu, US).

 

His research interests include multivariate approximation linked to Lissajous curves, uncertainty principles on manifolds and graphs, kernel methods for signal processing and learning on networks, fast and efficient reconstruction algorithms for inverse problems, as well as applications in biomedical imaging, in particular Magnetic Particle Imaging.

 

He is teaching the course “Mathematical Models and Numerical Methods for Big Data” for the Data Science master’s program at the University of Padua.

 

Webpage: https://www.lissajous.it

Github: https://github.com/WolfgangErb

Researchgate: https://www.researchgate.net/pro?le/Wolfgang-Erb-2

Filippo Pisano

Filippo Pisano is an Associate Professor at the Dept. of Physics and Astronomy of the University of Padua.

 

His research focuses on the development of next-generation tools and methods for optical neural interfaces, harnessing light-brain interactions for multimodal, bidirectional and minimally invasive communication with the brain.

 

He obtained his Master’s Degree in Physics at the University of Turin (2012) and his PhD in Physics at Institute of Photonics at the university of Strathclyde in Glasgow, UK (2017), where he worked on largescale opto-electronic interfaces with neural circuits in the mouse retina. He was a visiting scholar at the University of California Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA, US (2015).

 

He was a Post-Doc (2017-2021) and a Researcher (2021-2023) at the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia-Center for Biomolecular Nanotechnologies, where he worked on photonic neural interfaces based on tapered optical fiber probes, partecipating in large european initiatives such as the DEEPER project (https://deeperproject.eu/).

 

Filippo is a recipient of the ERC Starting Grant 2024 for the project NEUROLIDAR: measuring neural dynamics with label-free optical multi-domain recordings.

Micaela Zonta

Micaela Zonta is Research Technologist at the Neuroscience Institute of the National Research Council in Padova.

 

She obtained her degree in Biology at the University of Padova and her PhD under the supervision of the CNR neuroscientist Giorgio Carmignoto, investigating how calcium signal in astrocytes regulates gliotransmitter release and functional hyperemia.

 

Her research group at the CNR Neuroscience Institute in Padua investigates the role of astrocytes in Alzheimer’s Disease mouse models and in the modulation of dopaminergic circuits.

 

Research interests
Our research interests focus on the characterization of Ca2+ signals in astrocytes from different brain circuits and in different brain pathological states. To pursue our aims, we combine 2 photon imaging, electrophysiological techniques and immunohistochemistry.

 

Our recent results reveal the contribution of astrocytes to synaptic modulation in the dopaminergic circuits of Ventral Tegmental Area, and the effects of early astrocyte Ca2+ dysregulation on somatosensory synaptic plasticity in a mouse model of Alzheimer’s disease (B6.152H).

 

We are actually studying Ca2+ signals in hippocampal astrocytes from α7 nicotinic acetylcholine receptor knockout mice, characterized by an age-dependent Alzheimer’s disease-like phenotype, and in parallel we are deepening Ca2+ signal characterization in astrocytes from the Ventral Tegmental Area.

 

In a recently funded Telethon project, we are exploring cerebrovascular function in the B6.152H Alzheimer’s mouse model, to disclose possible links existing between the impairment observed in astrocyte Ca2+ signal and the different aspects of vascular dysfunction commonly reported in Alzheimer’s disease.

 

ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9982-6405

Roberta Sellaro

Roberta Sellaro is an Associate Professor at the Department of Developmental Psychology and Socialization of the University of Padova.

 

She graduated in Psychology in 2007 at the University of Padova, before moving to the Center for Mind and Brain Sciences (CIMeC) of the University of Trento where, in April 2013, she obtained a PhD in Cognitive and Brain Sciences (Cognitive Neuroscience Programme). During her graduate studies, she investigated whether and to what extent cognitive control efficiency can be affected by the social context surrounding us. Immediately after obtaining her PhD, she joined the Cognitive Psychology Unit of the Leiden University (the Netherlands) and the Leiden Institute for Brain & Cognition (LIBC), where she worked as a postdoctoral fellow, from April 2013 until July 2016, and as an Assistant Professor, from February 2017 until September 2020. During her post-doc, she used food supplementation (tyrosine, tryptophan, probiotics) and non-invasive brain stimulation techniques (tDCS, tVNS) to investigate the role of specific neurotransmitters (such as dopamine, GABA, noradrenaline and serotonin) and brain areas (such as prefrontal cortex areas and temporoparietal junction) in modulating cognitive and social functioning. She later carried out research to identify people’s metacontrol policies (biases towards stability or flexibility) and the factors and the conditions that promote the adoption of either policy. In October 2020, she moved to the University of Padova.

 

Her research interests are very broad. In very general terms, her research is aimed at uncovering reciprocal interactions between bottom-up (and/or self-related) and top-down cognitive control processes. She investigates the role of several factors (e.g., environmental/contextual factors, task-specific features, reward, individual differences, and affect) in modulating cognitive and social functioning and decision-making processes.

 

Her current research aims at integrating behavioral, psychophysiological (e.g., heart rate variability, pupil dilation, eye blink rate), computational and virtual reality methods to modulate cognitive control efficiency and emotional processing both in healthy subjects and in individuals with psychiatric disorders.

 

She has several national and international scientific collaborations, has authored more than 50 peer-reviewed articles in international scientific journals (Scopus h-index 19), 4 book chapters, organized various symposia, workshops and an international conference, and has been invited as a speaker at several symposia, research institutes and public events. She regularly serves as ad-hoc reviewer for several important international journals within the domains of experimental psychology and cognitive neuroscience and has served as an associate editor for two peer-reviewed international journals.

 

For a list of peer-reviewed international publications, see:

https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=T8fO5F4AAAAJ&hl=en

Roberto Dell’Acqua

Roberto Dell’Acqua is Full professor of Cognitive Science at the School of Psychology of the University of Padova.

 

Current position

Former Head of the Department of Developmental Psychology (DPSS). Founder of the Neuroimaging Labs sector in his Department. Member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Attention & Performance Society, and Editor of major scientific Journals in the field of Cognitive Science and Neuroscience. Principal investigator of the EEG and NIRS Units at the DPSS.

 

Research areas

  • Behavioral investigations of attention limitations in the temporal domain. As a pioneer in the discovery of the attentional blink (AB) phenomenon, several research lines in his labs are still underway to unveil the AB’s EEG and neural correlates.
  • Neuropsychological assessment of attention functions following brain damage. Using the psychological refractory period paradigm, a team of past and present collaborators are seeking to understand the causes of the so-called “mental slowness” affecting patients who suffered traumatic close-head injuries.
  • Cognitive electrophysiology of attention functions in human adults. The EEG/ERP approach is particularly well-suited to capture at the msec level the dynamics underlying an attention shift along the horizontal meridian. This approach, and state-of-the-art analytical approaches, is currently employed in his lab for in-depth explorations of the activity of the fronto-parietal circuit in human adults.
  • Functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) of attention functions in human adults. He and his collaborators are presently endeavoring to analyze variations in the concentration of oxy- and de-oxy hemoglobin in the cortical micro-flow so as to map out the regions of the cortical tissue responsible of the striking limitation in the memory maintenance of visually displayed objects.

 

Mendeley: https://www.mendeley.com/profiles/roberto-dellacqua/

Samir Simon Suweis

Samir Suweis is Associate Professor at the Physics and Astronomy department, University of Padua.

 

He graduated in Physics in 2008 at the University of Padova, and later earned a doctorate in Environmental Engineering at the Ecole École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in 2011. After a visiting period as a researcher at the University of Princeton (NJ, USA ), since 2012 he works in the Laboratory of Interdisciplinary Physics , where in 2016 he earned the position of Assistant Professor (RTDb). At present, he is Associate Professor.

 

His research work is at the interface between hydrology, ecology, and biology in the context of a theoretical framework provided by the physics of complex systems. His approach to these topics includes data mining, data analysis, statistical analysis, computational and analytic modeling.

 

He is author of numerous scientific publications in internationally renowned journals such as Nature, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and Nature Communications.

 

From 2013 he teaches at the Master in Communication Sciences at the University of Padova.

 

For more info: @SamirSuweis or visit http://loop.frontiersin.org/people/294830/overview

Silvia Benavides Varela

Silvia Benavides Varela is Associate Professor at the Department of Developmental and Social Psychology and Department of Neuroscience at Padua University.

 

She is trained as a biotechnology engineer, obtained a PhD in Neuroscience under the mentorship of Jacques Mehler from SISSA, Trieste, Italy. She then worked as a post doctoral researcher at the IRCSS San Camillo Hospital in Venice, and the Laboratoire Psychologie de la Perception (CNRS & Université Paris Descartes), in Paris, France.

 

The most important part of her research focused on developing new methods for unveiling the initial state of memory capacities in humans, the environmental factors that modulate learning, and the properties of the brain systems that support language and mathematic achievements across the life-span. She uses a range of neuroimaging techniques including electroencephalography, and functional Near Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS) in combination with behavioral metrics and analyses, both in healthy and in clinical populations.

Simone Cutini

Simone Cutini is Associate Professor, University of Padova, Department of Developmental Psychology.

 

Current Position

Head of functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy Laboratory, Department of Developmental Psychology.

 

Major research interests

Use of functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy

Behavioral and neuroimaging investigation of:

  • cognitive control
  • visual short-term memory
  • numerical cognition

Simone Messerotti Benvenuti

Simone Messerotti Benvenuti, Ph.D., is Associate Professor of Clinical Psychology at the Department of General Psychology, University of Padua.

 

He received his Master’s degree in Experimental Psychology and Cognitive-Behavioural Neuroscience (110/110 cum laude) in 2008 at the University of Padua. He earned a Ph.D. in Psychobiology in 2012 (University of Padua). He spent a period abroad in 2011 as a visiting Ph.D. student at the University of Birmingham, UK.

 

His research relies on an integration of subjective, behavioral and electrophysiological (e.g., EEG/ERPs, heart rate variability, startle reflex) approaches to study the association between depression and cardiovascular diseases as well as the psychophysiological correlates of emotional processing in individuals at risk of mood disorders.

 

He published about 40 peer-reviewed articles in international journals, with an h-index of 13. His research activity received the “Young Investigators Grant for Innovative and Excellent Research” (2014) and the “STARS Starting Grant (STARS-StG)” (2019) by the University of Padua as well as several national and international awards.

 

Main research interests

– Psychosomatic medicine. The role of depression, anxiety, cognitive decline, and autonomic dysregulation in cardiovascular risk.

– Psychophysiology of emotion and mood disorders. The neural, electrophysiological and autonomic correlates of emotion dysregulation in individuals at risk of mood disorders.

– Biofeedback and Neurofeedback. Biofeedback-assisted rehabilitation of autonomic dysfunctions associated with mood disorders; EEG-Neurofeedback for depression, emotion regulation, attention deficits and impulsive symptoms.

Maurizio Corbetta

Maurizio Corbetta is Full Professor and Chair of Neurology in the Department of Neuroscience at the University of Padua.

 

He is the former Norman J. Stupp Professor of Neurology, and Professor of Radiology, Anatomy and Neurobiology, and Bioengineering at Washington University School of Medicine. From 2001-to 2016 he was the Chief of the Division of Neuro-Rehabilitation, and Director of Neurological Rehabilitation at Washington University. As of October 1, 2016 Dr. Corbetta is Full Professor and Chair of Neurology in the Department of Neuroscience at the University of Padua, Italy. He is also the founding director of the new Padua Neuroscience Center, a highly interdisciplinary research programme centered on the idea of brain networks in health and society.

 

Prof. Corbetta has pioneered experiments on the neural mechanisms of human attention using Positron Emission Tomography (PET). He has discovered two brain networks dedicated to attention control, the dorsal and ventral attention networks, and developed a brain model of attention that has been cited in the literature more than 5,000 times. His clinical work has focused on the physiological correlates of focal injury. He has developed a pathogenetic model of the syndrome of hemispatial neglect.

 

He is currently developing novel methods for studying the functional organization of the brain using functional connectivity MRI, magneto-encephalography (MEG), and electro-corticography (EcoG). He is also working on the effects of focal injuries on the network organization of brain systems with an eye to neuromodulation.

 

His research has been recognized with several awards including a Highly Cited Researchers by Thompson Reuter based on the top 1% rate of citations in the last decade.

 

H index Scopus=62

Research gate

Google Scholar

Mauro Agostino Zordan

Mauro Agostino Zordan is Associate Professor in Genetics in the School of Science, Department of Biology, University of Padova.

 

Present position

Associate Professor in Genetics in the School of Science, Department of Biology, University of Padova, Italy; Teaching activity: Genetics, Population Genetics and, Molecular Phylogenetics; Responsible for the ERASMUS International Student Exhange program for the Department of Biology, and within this framework I am actively involved in maintaining a Double Diploma program between our University and the University of Paris VII (France), for the Master’s degree in Molecular Biology and the Master’s degree in Genetics (Magistére en Génétique), respectively.

 

Major research interests

  • I have been involved in research aimed at understanding the adaptive meaning of the molecular machinery implicated in the generation and maintenance of biological circadian rhythms in Drosophila melanogaster as well as other insects. In this context I developed most of my experience in conducting behavioural analyses with the objective of establishing the presence of locomotor defects as well as alterations in integrative neuronal functions such as those involved in the response to visual and/or olfactory stimuli.
  • I have participated in research in which Drosophila melanogaster was used as a model for the study of genes involved in human hereditary neuromuscular and/or mitochondrial diseases.
  • I have been involved in a collaborative research project in which the Drosophila larval neuromuscular junction was used as a model chemical synapse (glutamatergic) in which to study the detailed interplay between proteins and membrane lipids (among which the sphingolipids) in the process of neuronal vesicle recycling.
  • Currently, my main interest rests in the use of Drosophila as a model of neuropsychiatric disease. The complex constellation of behavioural phenotypes involved in neuropsychiatric disorders and the largely familiar pattern of inheritance, which is of a complex genetic nature, are the main reasons why so little is known of the pathogenesis of these diseases. Flies allow experimental approaches which are still difficult to address in other vertebrate model organisms, with particular reference to the sophisticated genetics and a very powerful toolbox of transgenic methods for neuronal circuit analysis. In addition, Drosophila has a relatively complex nervous system which shares many fundamental cellular and neurobiological processes with humans.
  • Altogether the common denominator of my ongoing research activity entails the use of Drosophila melanogaster as a model to study the genetics of behavioural, neuromuscular and synaptic defects which have some relation to known human hereditary diseases.

Michele Allegra

Michele Allegra is Researcher (RTD-A) since September 2021 at the “Galileo Galilei” Physics and Astronomy Department and the Padua Neuroscience Center of the University of Padua.

 

Upon completing a Ph.D in quantum physics at University of Turin, my research interests switched towards data analysis for neuroscience and I joined the Statistical and Biological Physics sector of the International School for Advanced Studies (SISSA), Trieste, where I worked in Prof. Alessandro Laio’s group from 2015 to 2018. My research activity within Laio’s group focused on advanced clustering techniques and their application to the study of dynamically changing brain connectivity. I deepended my focus on neuroscience during my stay at the Timone Neuroscience Institute (CNRS) in Marseille (2018-2021), where I joined the BraiNets group led by Andrea Brovelli. In Marseille I worked on the characterization of directional connections in brain networks, and their disruption in stroke.

 

My main research interest is understanding functional connections and in the brain, and their relation with the underlying dynamics. In my research I use a wide variety of tools including dimensionality reduction, information theory, and model inference.

 

I am author of 18 publications, of which 11 as a leading author. I lecture on statistics, data analysis, inference and information theory to physics undergraduate students and Neuroscience PhD students.

 

Personal web page: https://micheleallegra.github.io/

Google scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=pwlWv54AAAAJ&hl=it&oi=ao

Morten Gram Pedersen

Morten Gram Pedersen is Associate Professor in Bioengineering at the Department of Information Engineering, University of Padova.

 

He leads the unit for Modeling of Cell Biology. He holds a PhD in Mathematical Biology from the Technical University of Denmark, and has obtained independent funding for several postdoc positions, including a EU Marie Curie Intra-European Fellowships with Lund University Diabetes Centre, Malmö, Sweden.

 

He is the author of more than 50 papers on peer-reviewed journals (or which 8 as single author, 17 as first author; 30 as corresponding author). Besides collaborations with researchers from several departments of the University of Padova (Depts. Biomedical Sciences, Physics, Medicine, Mathematics), among others, he collaborates with experimental and theoretical researchers at Oxford University, UK; Uppsala University, Sweden; University of Exeter, UK; National Institutes of Health, MD, USA; Florida State University, FL, USA.

 

His main interests are mathematical modeling and theoretical analysis of:

  • local, intracellular calcium dynamics
  • local control of calcium-dependent potassium channels
  • protein and calcium dynamics evoking exocytosis of secretory vesicles
  • electrical activity in neuro-endocrine cells
  • clusters of electrically coupled cells

Nicola Cellini

Nicola Cellini is Associate Professor at the Department of General Psychology of the University of Padova.

 

He authored about 50 papers in international journals on sleep psychophysiology. His main research interests are the beneficial role of sleep in cognitive functions in healthy and clinical populations and the validation of wearable devices for physiological assessment in ecological conditions. He recently started to work on the development and use of non-invasive techniques to stimulate the sleeping brain to improve memory consolidation and sleep quality in humans.

He has a network of national and international collaborators including researchers from Stanford Research International and University of California Irvine.

He attracted more than 200k  of research grants by successfully participating in competitive calls and grants from industry. He is an ad-hoc reviewer for more than 30 important international journals within the domains of psychophysiology and experimental psychology and served as invited speaker to several international scientific conferences.
He has supervised numerous trainees and master students and a post-doc.

 

He currently teaches Neurophysiology and he received from M.I.U.R (Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research) the National Scientific Habilitation as Associate Professor in General Psychology, Psychobiology and Psychometrics (11/E1).

 

For a list of peer-reviewed international publications, see:
https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=18hEiyoAAAAJ&hl=en

Paola Rigo

Paola Rigo is an Assistant Professor (RTD-B) at the Department of Developmental Psychology and Socialisation of the University of Padua.

 

She received her master’s degree in Psychology path Neuroscience (2009) and her Ph.D. in Psychological Sciences and Education (2013) at the University of Trento. As a Ph.D. student, she visited the Family and Child Neuroscience Laboratory at the University of Denver (CO, US). She was a post-doctoral fellow at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, National Institute of Health (NICHD -NIH, Bethesda, MD, US; 2014-2015) and Nanyang Technological University (Singapore, SG; 2016-2017).

Scientific Production
She is an author of 22 peer-reviewed articles in international scientific journals (most of them in high-quality journals including Scientific Report Nature, Proceeding of National Academy of Sciences, Developmental Review, NeuroImage and Social neuroscience), 1 book and 4 book chapters. She served as an ad-hoc reviewer for Behavioural Brain Research, Brain Imaging and Behavior, Brain Research, Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience, Developmental Psychobiology, Parenting: Science and Practice, Perceptual & Motor Skills Journal, PLOS ONE, Psychological Reports, Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, and Social Neuroscience. She was a Guest Editor for Infant Behavior and Development Journal (Edited by Esposito, Bornstein & Rigo, 2020).

Grant and Award
She is a PI of a Research Project funded by BIRD182991-2019 (15K EUR), and a Co-PI of several Research Projects funded by PRIN 2017 (around 119K EUR), Academic Research Fund (AcRF) Tier 1 Grant 2016 (circa 67K EUR), BIRD195080-2020; (28K EUR), Padova Neuroscience Center, PCN (5K EUR). She received the Intramural Research Training Award (IRTA) as Postdoctoral Visiting Fellow (NIH, 2014).

Research Interest and Collaborations
Her research interest focuses on the psychobiological basis of parenting and intersubjectivity. Through an ecological and interdisciplinary perspective, she investigates how caregivers’ response is modulated by the interplay between individual and clinical factors of parents (e.g., temperament, mood) and biological changes occurring during the early post-partum period. In connection with these studies; her research also investigates the effect of situational context in which parents respond to infant needs. She uses an integrated approach that spans from psychological measures to observational, behavioral, and neuroimaging studies (fMRI). National and international research collaborations: Alessandra Simonelli (University of Padova), Pilyoung Kim (University of Denver), Xiaoxia Du (East China Normal University), Marc H. Bornstein, (NIH), Gianluca Esposito (Nanyang Technological University, University of Trento), Paola Venuti (University of Trento). Since 2012, she is a member of the Special Community Membership of the University of Denver (Dr. Kim).

Paola Sessa

Paola Sessa is Full Professor at the Dept. of Developmental Psychology and Socialisation (DPSS) in Padova.

 

She obtained her PhD in Cognitive Sciences in 2005 at the University of Padova. Much of her initial research was on basic attentional and visual working memory processes. She directs the Electroencephalography Laboratory at the Department of Developmental and Social Psychology and she is a member of the Cognition and Language Laboratory (CoLab) and of the Padova Neuroscience Center (PNC) of the same University.

 

She is author of about 35 publications (of which 12 as first/corresponding author) and most of them have been published in leading international journals like Social, Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, Scientific Reports, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, Neuropsychologia and Psychophysiology. She is Associate Editor of Scientific Reports and ad hoc reviewer for 18 International journals, including: Advances in Cognitive Psychology, Biological Psychology, Brain Research, Cerebral Cortex, Cognition and Emotion, Cognitive, Affective and Behavioural Neuroscience, Cognitive Neuroscience, Cortex, European Journal of Developmental Psychology, Experimental Psychology, Neuroimage, Neuropsychologia, PlosOne, Psychological Research, Psychophysiology, Scientific Reports, Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, Social Neuroscience.

 

Her research mostly focuses on empathy and simulative processes and on their neural underpinnings by using techniques with high temporal resolution, such as the EEG and ERP. She is also planning to use hyperscanning (co-registration of brain activity from two or more interacting individuals) to study these same processes in a more ecological and potentially informative setting. So far, she has been collaborating on these projects with Shihui Han (Peking University, China) and Jeroen Vaes (Università di Trento). At the present, she is also planning new collaborations with colleagues expert on theory and methodology relative to hyperscanning, such as Lauri Parkkonen (Aalto University, Finland) and Ivana Konvalinka (University of Denmark, Denmark).

 

A different line of research mostly focuses on using EEG/ERP to study how social cues conveyed by human faces, such as emotional expressions, group membership, gaze direction and perceived trustworthiness may shape low-level processes, in particular resolution of faces’ representations in visual working memory. So far, she has been collaborating on these projects with Pierre Jolicoeur (University of Montreal, Canada) and Roy Luria (Tel-Aviv University, Israel), who are both experts of visual working memory processes and their neural correlates.

Paolo Meneguzzo

Paolo Meneguzzo is a researcher (RTD-B) at the Department of Neuroscience of the University of Padova.

 

He graduated in Medicine and Surgery in 2012 and completed his psychiatry residency in 2018 at the University of Padova. He completed a Ph.D. in neurosciences at the University of Padua in 2021 with a thesis on neurodevelopmental trajectories in patients with anorexia nervosa, investigating the cognitive and structural effects of malnutrition on the brain of adolescents and adult women. During his studies, he spent two internship periods at the Department of Neuroscience and Functional Pharmacology of the University of Uppsala (Sweden) and at the Department of Psychosomatic Medicine and Psychotherapy of the University of Tübingen (Germany).

 

He participates in numerous national and international research collaborations on psychosis, eating disorders, and body image dissatisfaction. His primary research interests revolve around eating disorders from a clinical neuroscience perspective, with a specific focus on cognitive, emotional, and interpersonal aspects. His research area also includes gender diversity, environmental effects on mental health, and psychotherapies.

 

Google scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=RRcIAAgAAAAJ&hl=it

Patrizia Trevisi

Patrizia Trevisi is Associate Professor of Audiology at Padua University (Neurosciences Dept, Med 32).

 

She is also President of the School of Speech Therapy; representative of Pediatric Audiology at Padua Hospital; coordinator of the Universal Hearing Screening in Veneto Region. Member of the CRANIO group of the European Reference Networks fo Rare Diseases and rare ENT conditions.

 

Her research fields of interest concerne hearing impairment in children, cochlear implants, hearing impairment associated to additional disabilities and rare diseases, clinical application of Cortical auditory evoked potentials (CAEPs).

 

She is author of about 45 papers on peer reviewed international journals and book chapters and 2 monographs. She also presented lectures to 38 national and international scientific congresses and courses as invited speaker.

 

She is teacher for classes at School of Medicine, at University Diploma of Logopaedia, of Audioprosthesis and for the Resident Schools for Audiology and Phoniatrics (MED 32). Her most important clinical activities concerne Paediatric Audiology and rare disease and rare ENT anomalies. She is a member of the cochlear implant equipe of the ENT Dept.

Ramón Guevara

Ramón Guevara is currently a Research Technologist at the Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Padua, Italy.

 

He is a biophysicist and neuroscientist. He studied physics, earning an M.Sc in theoretical condense matter physics at the University of Havana, and an M.Sc in high energy physics at the Abdus Salam International Center of Theoretical Physics, Trieste, Italy. He defended his Ph.D thesis at the University of Trieste, Italy, in 2003, in the field of theoretical particle physics and cosmology, after which he worked at several universities, research institutes and hospitals in Italy, Spain, France and Canada. He is currently a Research Technologist at the Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Padua, Italy.

 

His main research interest is the temporal coordination dynamics in the nervous system, and the investigation of the mechanisms and functional role of neuronal oscillations and synchronization in cognition and brain pathologies. He applies mathematical methods and concepts form the fields of nonlinear dynamics, statistical physics and information theory in his research. He has also contributed to the investigation of brain functional connectivity in non-invasive recordings of the human brain (electroencephalography and magnetoencephalography) from the methodological point of view. He has investigated how excessive neuronal synchronization leads to pathologies such as epilepsy and Parkinson’s disease, and the importance of noisy, non-synchronized activity for the emergence of consciousness. Other topics he has investigated includes diffusion processes in decisions making, time perception, stochastic resonance in vision and the role of brain oscillations in speech processing.

 

His teaching activity includes the Biomedical Modeling course for the Master in Biomedical Engineer at the University Paris Descartes in Paris, France, and the Physics and Biophysics course for the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Padua, held in Treviso, Italy, as well as shorter courses in more specialized topics at the University of Toronto in Canada and the Basque Center for Brain, Cognition and Language, in San Sebastian, Spain.

Marco Zorzi

Marco Zorzi is Full Professor of Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Psychology at the University of Padova, and Senior Researcher at IRCCS San Camillo Neurorehabilitation Hospital in Venice-Lido.

 

Trained in cognitive psychology, computational modelling, computational and cognitive neuroscience during doctoral and postdoctoral studies in Trieste (University of Trieste and SISSA), London (UCL) and Padova, he joined San Raffaele University-Milan in 2000 as Assistant Professor and the University of Padova in 2001 as Associate Professor (Full Professor since 2006).

 

In 2001 he set up the Computational Cognitive Neuroscience Lab, an interdisciplinary research laboratory at the frontiers between cognitive science, computer science and neuroscience, focused on the computational bases of human cognition.  Computational modeling based on artificial neural networks is complemented by empirical studies on adults (both healthy and neurologically impaired) and children (both typically and atypically developing) using behavioral and cognitive neuroscience methods.

 

Recent computational work was supported by the European Research Council and exploits deep learning and probabilistic graphical models to produce realistic simulations of human neurocognitive functions. State-of-the-art machine learning methods are also applied to neuroinformatics (neuroimaging data) and industrial applications.

 

Major past grants include Italian Ministry of Education and University (PRIN 2002, 2004, 2006, 2008), Italian Ministry of Health (RF 2013), University of Padova (Strategic Grants), Cariparo Foundation (Excellence Grants), Compagnia di San Paolo (Neuroscience Program), European Commission (FP5 and FP6, Marie Curie RTN), European Research Council.

 

Full list of publications at: http://scholar.google.it/citations?user=MgF3uIMAAAAJ&hl=it

Maria Elena Miletto Petrazzini

Maria Elena Miletto Petrazzini is a Researcher (RTDa) at the Department of General Psychology of the University of Padova.

 

She received from M.I.U.R (Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research) the National Scientific Habilitation as Associate Professor in General Psychology, Psychobiology and Psychometrics (11/E1).

 

She got a Master degree in Evolution of Animal and Human Behaviour (cum laude) at the University of Torino in 2009. She obtained a Ph.D in Psychological Sciences at the University of Padova (2014) working on the mechanisms underlying non-verbal numerical abilities using fish as model species. She worked as post-doctoral fellow at the Department of General Psychology, University of Padova (2014-2018) and then she moved to London where she worked as Marie Curie research fellow at Queen Mary University of London (2018-2020). From 2020 to 2021 she was a Stars-Grant post-doctoral fellow at the University of Padova (Department of Biomedical Science).

 

Her research interest focuses on the evolution of cognitive abilities in animals, with specific reference to the non-verbal numerical systems, visual perception and the impact of brain lateralization on cognitive functions, by combining behaviour with in vivo imaging.

 

She attracted more than 300k  of research grants by successfully participating in competitive calls at national and international level. In 2017 she won a Marie-Curie Individual Fellowship and in 2019 she was granted by the University of Padua with the STARS Starting Grant.

 

She has authored more than 50 peer-reviewed articles in international scientific journals and 5 book chapters. She has organized 2 symposia and she has been invited as a speaker in national and international conferences and research institutes.

 

She regularly acts as a reviewer for international peer-review journals in the field of comparative psychology and she is Guest Editors of special issues in peer-review scientific journals.

 

Google scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=it&user=pSBUG4QAAAAJ&view_op=list_works&sortby=pubdate

Mario Bonato

Mario Bonato is Associate Professor at the Department of General Psychology in Padova.

 

He is a neuropsychologist holding a Master Degree in Experimental Psychology, PhD in Cognitive Science). He has specific clinical expertise in post-stroke cognitive assessment. Among young researchers, dr Bonato is considered a leading expert in the assessment of visuo-spatial disorders. He devised a very sensitive computer-based dual-task method for the diagnosis of hemispatial neglect following unilateral brain damage. This approach mimics everyday demands and might become the gold standard for the diagnosis of hemispatial neglect in the chronic phase (Bonato, 2015).

 

He published mostly as leading author (first and corresponding), several scientific articles, in the most widely read and better-ranked peer-reviewed international journals for neuropsychology and experimental psychology.

 

He attracted more than 300k of research grants by successfully participating in competitive calls at national (Belgium and Italy) and European level. His international profile is very strong and includes 4+ years in Ghent (Belgium). He regularly acts as reviewer for all the best international journals within the domains of experimental psychology, neuropsychology and cognitive neuroscience (about 35 journals).

 

Research interests: Visuo-spatial attention, spatial cognition and spatial awareness, particularly in brain-damaged patients (e.g. hemispatial neglect following stroke). Clinical neuropsychology: computer-based diagnosis and rehabilitation. Numerical cognition: number/time-space interactions.

 

Publications: Google Scholar, ResearchGate

Giovanni Sparacino

Giovanni Sparacino is currently Full Professor at the Dept. of Information Engineering in Padova.

 

He received the MSc (summa cum laude) in Electronics Engineering from the University of Padova in 1992 and the PhD in Bioengineering from the Polytechnic of Milan in 1996.

From 1997 to 1998 he was Research Engineer at the Department of Audiology and Phoniatrics of the University of Padova. Then, he joined the Department of Information Engineering as Assistant Professor of Bioengineering. Since 2005 he is Associate Professor at the same department, where he is presently in charge of teaching “Medical Informatics” and “Biological Data Analysis”. At present, he is Full Professor at the University of Padua.

 

Since 2004 he is member of the Board of Professors of the “PhD School in Information Engineering”. Since 2012 he is coordinator of the “Bioengineering” track of the PhD School and, since 2015, he is the School Vice-director. During the academic year 2016/17, he served as Vice-Head of the department.

 

His scientific expertise includes modeling, deconvolution and parameter estimation techniques for the study of physiological systems, algorithms for continuous glucose monitoring sensors (calibration, denoising and prediction), methods for linear and nonlinear analysis of biomedical signals (fNIRS, EEG, local field potentials, event-related potentials, BCI).

He authored more than 90 regular papers appeared in WoS/Scopus –indexed international journals (Scopus H-index is 24, with 1964 citations) and 7 patents. More information on http://www.dei.unipd.it/~gianni

 

Contacts:
Prof. Giovanni Sparacino
Department of Information Engineering – University of Padova
Via Gradenigo 6/B
35131 Padova

Phone: +39 049 827 7741
Fax: +39 049 827 7699
e-mail: gianni@dei.unipd.it

Jeff Kiesner

Jeff Kiesner is an Associate Professor in the Department of Developmental and Social Psychology at the University of Padova.

 

He has a broad background in both research and teaching, including courses taught in statistics, developmental psychology, social psychology, clinical psychology, and neuroscience; and research publications across areas of developmental psychology, social psychology, clinical psychology and psychoneuroendocrinology.

 

He has conducted pioneering research on individual differences in symptom experience associated with the menstrual cycle, with the goal of better understanding what characterizes Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder (PMDD). This work has focused on demonstrating the importance of studying each woman’s individual profile and trajectory of physical and psychological changes across the menstrual cycle. Related to this research, he has published a cross-disciplinary theoretical paper connecting the development of affective disorders with the neuroendocrine, behavioral and social changes associated with pubertal development and the onset of the menstrual cycle among adolescent girls. Whereas Kiesner’s past research in this area has focused on high-frequency longitudinal assessment of symptoms, future research will include neuroimaging studies and neuroendocrine studies to understand the neurological links between the multitude of physical and psychological symptoms associated with PMDD.

 

 

A recent extension of this research includes a focus on sexual function and dysfunction among women, including problems associated with sexual desire, arousal, and orgasm. This research focusses on affective and cognitive mechanisms associated with inhibition of sexual desire, arousal, and orgasm, and will include studies aimed at understanding brain activations and effective connectivity. In addition to these well recognized (though poorly understood) issues concerning female sexual functioning, a new focus of Kiesner’s research will be on Persistent Genital Arousal Disorder/Genito-Pelvic Dysesthesia (PGAD/GPD). These less recognized and less studied disorders have important psychological implications and neuropathophysiological origins that will likely offer insights to prevention and treatment and will be an important part of Kiesner’s future work.

Judit Gervain

Judit Gervain is a Full Professor at the Department of Developmental and Social Psychology.

 

She is trained as a theoretical linguistic, obtained a PhD in 2002 in Cognitive Neuroscience under the mentorship of Jacques Mehler from SISSA, Trieste, Italy. She then worked as a post doctoral researcher at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. In 2009, she took up a researcher position at the CNRS, in Paris, France, from which she moved to the University of Padua in 2020.

 

Her research focuses early speech perception and language acquisition in typically developing monolingual, bilingual infants as well as in infants with hearing difficulties. She uses behavioral as well as brain imaging techniques to explore the perceptual, linguistic and cognitive development of these infants and their underlying neural correlates. She has done pioneering work in newborn speech perception using near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS), revealing the impact of prenatal experience on early perceptual abilities, and has been one of the first to document the beginnings of the acquisition of grammar in newborns and preverbal infants.

 

Her work has been published in leading journals, such as Science Advances, Nature Communications, PNAS and Current Biology. She is an associate editor at Developmental Science and Neurophotonics, and a member of the Governing Board of the Society for Near-Infrared Spectroscopy.

 

Link to personal page

Luca Tonin

Luca Tonin is currently Associate Professor at the Department of Information Engineering of the University of Padova.

Continue reading

Luisa Sartori

Luisa Sartori is Associate Professor, University of Padova, Department of General Psychology.

 

Academic Background

Doctor of Philosophy  in Perception and Psychophysics

Visiting Scholar at University of Edinburgh (GB) in 2003, University College of London (UK) in 2007, Melbourne University (Australia) in 2010, McMaster University (Canada) in 2015.

 

Present Position

Associate Professor, University of Padova, Department of General Psychology. Principal Investigator of S.I.R. project (Scientific Independence of young Researchers) granted by Italian Ministry of Instruction, University and Research (amount € 260.000,00). Italian Professorship Qualification in 2014, scientific sector: M-PSI/02 – Psychobiology and Physiological Psychology. Professor of Psycobiology since 2016

 

Main Research Interests

  • Neural basis of motor control, with a strong focus on interpersonal synchronization
  • Attention and social interactions: Neurophysiological and functional neuroimaging studies (TMS, EMG, fMRI and 3-D motion tracking)
  • Neurorehabilitative protocols for patients with localized impairment on cortical motor areas
  • Comparative approach to monkeys’ grasping behaviors in naturalistic settings
  • Robotics applications aimed at increasing artificial agents’ skills in human environment

Manfredo Atzori

Manfredo Atzori is Associate Professor at the Department of Neuroscience of the University of Padova.

 

He received a M.Sc. in Physics and a Ph.D. in Bioengineering in 2006 and 2009 at the University of Padova. He is Associate Professor at the Department of Neuroscience of the University of Padova. He has been research scientist at the Institute of Information Systems of the University of Applied Sciences Western Switzerland (HES-SO Valais) since 2011.

His research interests are related to the development of machine learning techniques targeting multimodal data analysis, particularly in the biomedical domain.

 

Since 2019 he is the Scientific Coordinator of the Horizon 2020 project ExaMode, involving seven international partners and targeting weakly-supervised knowledge discovery from multimodal medical data, such as text and images, in the context of digital pathology (htttp://www.examode.eu/).

Since 2011 he collected and has managed Ninapro, a publicly available database aiming at improving the control of robotic hand prostheses with machine learning and data fusion, currently having several thousand users worldwide (http://ninapro.hevs.ch/).

He has been the coordinator of the Hasler Fundation financed ProHand project, targeting the development of 3D printed robotic prosthetic hands controlled via machine learning approaches.

Between 2016 and 2019, Prof. Atzori had a leading role in the MeganePro Project, involving three international partners. The project was aimed at improving robotic prosthesis control with eye-hand coordination and at better understanding the neurocognitive effects of amputations. Multimodal data were released in the context of the project, including electromyography, intertial, gaze tracking, visual, behavioral and clinical data for prosthetics and phantom limb sensation analyses.

Since 2015 he has worked on the development of computer aided diagnostic systems for cancer in byopsies using computer vision techniques such as convolutional neural networks.

In 2015, Prof. Atzori was among the first researchers worldwide in developing convolutional neural networks for surface electromyography data analysis.

Prof. Atzori is author of over 80 peer reviewed scientific publications with over 2’000 citations and he presented his work, also as invited speaker, at several international conferences.

He is member of the editorial board of Scientific Data (Nature Publishing Group).

Finally, Prof. Atzori has strong experience in developing scientific projects in collaboration with academic research groups and companies.

Manuela Allegra

Manuela Allegra is currently Permanent researcher at CNR working at the Neuroscience Department in Padua.

 

She graduated in Neurobiology at the University of Pisa in 2009 under the supervision of Prof Yuri Bozzi. She obtained a PhD in Neurobiology at the Scuola Normale Superiore of Pisa in 2014, working in Prof Matteo Caleo’s lab, where the main focus of her research activity was the study of neuroplasticity mechanisms in physiological and pathological conditions, using the visual system of rodent models.

In 2017, Dr Allegra moved to Paris and joined the laboratory of Prof Christoph Schmidt-Hieber at the Institut Pasteur. Here she was awarded with the Marie Curie individual fellowship and her research activity was mainly focused on the hippocampal function in memory encoding and recall.

In 2020, she was appointed to a permanent research position by the CNR and she joined the Neuroscience Department in Padua, where she has started her own research group with a starting grant from Fondazione CaRiPaRo.

 

Her main research interest is centered on the field of neuroplasticity, studying the neural mechanisms underlying the capability of the brain to rewire itself in response to environmental pressures and focusing on the hippocampus and neocortex.

 

ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5152-8225

Marco Dal Maschio

Marco Dal Maschio is Associate Professor of Physiology, Department of Biomedical Science, University of Padua.

 

Bio sketch
He obtained the degree in Physics at the University of Padova in 2002. After completing a PhD in Biotechnologies, he undertook postdoctoral research first at the Italian Institute of Technology, Dept. Neuroscience and Brain Technologies, (Genua, Italy), and then at the Max-Planck Institute for Neurobiology, Dept. Genes-Circuits-Behavior (Martinsried, Germany).

 

Research Interests
Is it possible to link neuronal activity to functional architectures supporting behavior? A growing toolbox of experimental and analysis methods allows to start addressing these questions in awake or even freely behaving animal models. We can take advantage of optical and electrical approaches to simultaneously record and modulate the activity in large portions of the brain or in a target circuit down to single cell resolution during a sensory experience or a behavior task. From the analysis of these datasets, we can distill mathematical models of the circuit, testable directly on a living preparation, to reconstruct the role of the different circuit components on the activity and on the behavior recorded. With the development of this kind of investigation framework, my research aims to: 1. gain basic insights on the mechanistic organization of the brain circuits involved in behavior control and sensorimotor transformations; 2. characterize altered network dynamics associated with pathological conditions.

 

Publications
https://www.scopus.com/authid/detail.uri?authorId=650669295

 

Contacts
Department of Biomedical Sciences
University of Padua
Email: marco.dalmaschio@unipd.it

Marco Formentin

Marco Formentin is Associate Professor at the Department of Mathematics “Tullio Levi-Civita” of the University of Padova.

 

He graduated in Physics in 2004 and earned a doctorate in Mathematics in 2009 at the University of Padova. In 2017 he held the position of Assistant Professor (RTDb) at the Department of Mathematics “Tullio Levi-Civita” of the University of Padova and at present, he is Associate Professor.

 

His primary research topic is the understanding of systems made up of a large number of interacting agents and possible applications in complex systems ranging from ecology to interactive human dynamics.

 

Recent interests are:

1) mechanisms for the emergence of collective periodic behavior;
2) mathematical ecology: in particular mechanisms that enhance biodiversity;
3) modeling and statistics for complex human dynamics.

 

For more info visit https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Marco_Formentin

Francesco Marchetti

Francesco Marchetti is a fixed-term researcher (RTDa) at the Department of Mathematics “Tullio Levi-Civita” of the University of Padova.

 

I got my master degree in Mathematics and my PhD in Health Planning Sciences at the University of Padova in 2016 and 2021, respectively.

In my master thesis and during my PhD, I worked in the field of Magnetic Particle Imaging (MPI), which is a novel tracer-based medical imaging technique, studying effective approximation schemes suitable for reconstructing signals along Lissajous curves, which are typical sampling trajectories in a MPI scanner. Moreover, I studied and applied kernel-based machine learning techniques in the context of rare diseases diagnosis and in the classification of patient-derived xenografts.

After the PhD, I started collaborating with the MIDA group of the University of Genova in the field of space weather forecasting, and I analysed and applied deep learning methods. Then, I won a one year postdoctoral grant sponsored by the Istituto Nazionale di Alta Matematica (INdAM). The research project linked to my current position concerns p-Laplacians on hypergraphs and related machine learning approaches.

 

My research interest is mainly in approximation theory, kernel-based approximation and machine learning, deep learning, medical imaging and space weather forecasting. I am part of the research groups CAA (Constructive Approximation and Applications) between the Universities of Padova and Verona, Rete Italiana di Approssimazione (RITA) and Methods for Image and Data Analysis (MIDA).

Francesco Rinaldi

Francesco Rinaldi is Full Professor at the Department of Mathematics “Tullio Levi-Civita”, University of Padova. He is also coordinator of the Data Science Master’s Programme at the University of Padova.

 

He received the M.S. degree in computer engineering and the Ph.D. degree in operations research from the Sapienza University of Rome, in 2005 and 2009, respectively.

He served as organizing/program committee member and as session/minisymposium organizer at many international conferences. He was also invited speaker at more than 40 international conferences and university seminars.

 

He received a number of research grants for his research (e.g., ARISLA 2021 grant).

 

He published over 50 papers in toptier academic journals including SIAM Journal on Optimization, Mathematical Programming Computation, Mathematics of Operations Research, Bioinformatics, IEEE Transactions, Molecular Neurodegeneration.

 

His current research interests include optimization for big data, network science, machine learning for medicine and biology.

 

Google scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=CQVb2IgAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao

Scopus: https://www.scopus.com/authid/detail.uri?authorId=7005406365

Personal Google Site: https://www.math.unipd.it/~rinaldi/

Gian Michele Ratto

Gian Michele Ratto is Tenured Scientist at the Neuroscience Institute of the National Research Council in Padua.

 

He graduated in Physics in Genova at the end of 1984 and right afterward he joined Roger Tsien laboratory in Berkeley as a post doc where he employed the newly synthetized dye fura2 to measure calcium dynamics in vertebrate photoreceptors during photo response.

After a brief period in Pisa with a fellowship from the Accademia dei Lincei, he moved to Cambridge (UK) until 1992 where he studied the cellular mechanisms of the early development of light sensitivity of mammalian photoreceptors.

He returned to Pisa in 1993 where he eventually joined Lamberto Maffei’s laboratory, and finally he became tenured scientist in 1997 at the Institute of Neuroscience. In 2007 he joined the Institute of Nanoscience CNR located in the applied Physics lab of the Scuola Normale Superiore. There he directed the in vivo physiology lab until 2022, when he joined the Neuroscience Institute in Padua.

 

His current research interests are relative to the role of circadian rhythm in shaping fast synaptic inhibition and neuronal activity in physiological conditions and in murine models of diseases of the autistic spectra. His tools of the trade includes the development of novel genetically encoded sensor for the study of neuronal function and multielectrode in vivo electrophysiology.

 

In the last 15 years, he have supervised 12 PhD students at Scuola Normale Superiore and 34 master thesis. Most of these young scientists are still in Academia and some of them have started their own independent lab. Alumni from his lab moved to different positions outside of Italy including University of Wisconsin, Harvard University (Boston, USA), Columbia University (NYC, USA), University College London, Oxford University, Amsterdam University, Yale University, Max Plank Institute (Munich), Umea University (Sweden), Lund University (Sweden), Radboud University, Nijmegen (Netherland).

Giorgia Cona

Giorgia Cona, PhD, is Associate Professor at the University of Padova, Department of General Psychology.

 

She received a Master’s degree in Experimental Psychology and Cognitive Behavioural Neuroscience (110/110 cum laude) in 2008 at the University of Padova. She earned a PhD. in Psychobiology in 2012. She spent a period abroad in 2011 working at the University of Toronto, in the Morris Moscovitch’s Lab.

From 2012 to 2016, she had post-doc positions at the Department of Neuroscience and the Department of General Psychology (University of Padova). In 2017, she become lecturer (RTDa) at the Department of General Psychology.

In 2012, she received the Young Researcher Award from the AIP (Associazione Italiana di Psicologia). In 2019, she won a grant from the University of Padua, the STARS Starting Grant, with a project titled: “Trade-offs in human Behaviour and Brain: a (r)Evolutionary approach” and a grant from the Italian Ministry of Health (Bando Ricerca Finalizzata) with a project focused on the Effectiveness of attention/executive functions training on prospective memory abilities of Parkinson’s disease with a combined immersive Virtual Reality and Telemedicine approach.

 

She teaches Neuropsychology of Aging, Human Electrophysiology and Non-Invasive Brain Stimulation techniques at University of Padua.

 

She has authored more than 30 peer-reviewed articles in international scientific journals, 4 book chapters, organized various symposia and international workshops, and has been invited as a speaker in several national and international conferences and research institutes.

 

She is expert in EEG and TMS techniques; her research interests involve:

  • Neural mechanisms of cognitive processes (i.e., prospective memory, spatial processing, temporal processing; reward-related processes, cognitive control).
  • Commonalities and differences in brain and behavior across individuals
  • Cognitive neuroscience and sport 

 

Google Scholar profile: https://scholar.google.it/citations?user=cT-WHyIAAAAJ&hl=en

Research gate profile: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Giorgia_Cona

 

Giovanni Mento

Giovanni Mento is Associate Professor in Developmental Neuropsychology and  EEG recording and Analysis at the Department of General Psychology of the University of Padua.

 

He received his master degree in Psychology (2005) and his PhD in Psychobiology (2009) at the University of Padua.  During his PhD, He visited the Cognitive Neuroscience Lab at the INSERM-CEA “Cognitive Neuroimaging unit” CEA/SAC/DSV/DRM/NeuroSpin, Saclay (Paris). He was a post-doctoral fellow at the Department of General Psychology of the University of Padua (2009-2016).

 

His research interests are in the field of Cognitive Neurosciences, Developmental Cognitive Neurosciences and Developmental Neuropsychology. His main research topic is the investigation of the brain predictive and anticipatory activity in a developmental neuroconstructivist perspective, with a special interest about how top-down and bottom-up temporal expectancy interplay to shape multiple cognitive domains, including attention, motor preparation, working memory and inhibitory control.

 

His scientific interests span over both typical and atypical developmental population, including Down syndrome, Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), Autism Spectrum Disorder, Learning Disabilities, Neurological Syndromes (i.e., epilepsy).

 

His methodological expertise focuses on the use of both low and high-spatial resolution electroencephalography (Geodesic system) to uncover the spatiotemporal brain dynamics underlying the interaction between predictive mechanisms and stimulus processing. He specifically works on both temporal and oscillatory EEG domains to understand the relationship between resting state/event-related functional connectivity at the source-level and behavioural performance in a developmental perspective.

 

He is the scientific responsible of the research agreement between the Department of General Psychology of the University of Padova and the Scientific institute for rehabilitation medicine association “Eugenio Medea/La Nostra Famiglia”, Conegliano Veneto, Treviso, Italy. Research Project “Analisi dei segnali EEG ad alta densita? e del profilo neuropsicologico per la selezione dei pazienti con epilessia invalidante e farmacoresistente per la chirurgia dell’epilessia”.

 

He has active scientific collaborations with the Department of Experimental Psychology (University of Oxford) and with the King’s College (London).

 

He is member of:

  • Scientific Committee of the Interdepartmental (DPG-DPSS) High-density EEG lab, University of Padova;
  • PhD Course in Psychological Science, University of Padova;
  • Ethical Committee of the of the School of Psychology, University of Padova, Italy.

 

He has co-supervised 3 PhD students, 2 post-doctoral fellow and more than 20 trainees and master students.

 

He has authored more than 33 peer-reviewed articles in international scientific journals, 1 book chapter and has been invited as a speaker in several national and international research institutes.

 

He has served as an ad hoc reviewer for numerous international journals including Plos Biology, Brain, Neurosci Biobehav R, Cereb Cortex, Neuroimage, J Cogn Neurosci, Cortex, Neuropsychologia, Developmental Science, etc.

 

In 2017 he was granted by the University of Padua with the STARS CoG (Supporting Talent in ReSearch@University of Padova) grant, edition 2017, Consolidator Section.

Cristina Scarpazza

Cristina Scarpazza is Associate Professor at the Department of General Psychology of the University of Padova.

 

She received from M.I.U.R (Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research) the National Scientific Habilitation as Associate Professor in “General Psychology, Psychobiology and Psychometrics” (11/E1).

 

She published more than 70 papers in international journals on translational psychology and neuroscience, with particular emphasis of early diagnosis of psychiatric disorders, identification of neuroanatomical signature of psychiatric illness, group to individual inferences, forensic psychiatry (with particular focus on insanity evaluation). Cristina is particularly interested in cognitive biases and their impact in the interpretation of scientific findings. Through her long standing collaboration with the King’s College London, she was actively involved in a EU-founded multicentric study (PSYSCAN) aiming to improve the translational impact of neuroimaging findings from research to clinical practice. Furthermore, she is part of the Machine Learning in Mental Health Lab (https://mlmh-lab.github.io/members/) that is working to create a web based tool that, applying deep learning algorithms, automatically detects neuro-anatomical abnormalities in psychiatric populations and provides clinicians with an automated report of the results. As a clinician, Cristina was also involved in clinical and research activities on multiple sclerosis.

 

For her research, she received the “Italy Made M” Award from the Italian Embassy in London in 2018 and a special mention for medicine from the Italian associations of innovators and inventors women.

 

In 2018, she won a grant from the University of Padua, the STARS Starting Grant, with a project titled: “EMOTIGEN: Are we really studying genuine emotions? The problem of genuineness of emotional expression”.

 

Research Gate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Cristina_Scarpazza

Google scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=ME6K90gAAAAJ&hl=en

Diego Cecchin

Diego Cecchin is currently Associate Professor of Nuclear Medicine (MED/36), University-Hospital of Padova, School of Medicine.

 

Present position:

  • Associate Professor of Nuclear Medicine (MED/36), University-Hospital of Padova, School of Medicine.
  • Chief of the postgraduate School of nuclear medicine, University of Padova.

 

Major Research interests:

  • PET/MR applications in amyloid semi-quantification and quantification
  • PET/MR applications in brain tumors
  • PET/MR applications in multiple sclerosis
  • PET/MR applications in neurodegenerative diseases
  • PET/MR applications in movement disorders
  • PET/MR applications in sarcoma of the adult (body)

Edoardo Midena

Edoardo Midena is Board Certified in Ophthalmology, Full Professor of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences at the University of Padova, School of Medicine, and Chairman of Ophthalmology at Padova University Hospital.

 

He is member of the scientific board of the G.B. Bietti Foundation for study and research in ophthalmology (Rome, Italy), he is elected member of  the Club Jules Gonin, the Retina Society, the Macula Society,  and the European Academy of Ophthalmology, EURETINA (also Board Member), General Secretary of the Italian Retina Society.

 

Professor Miden’s major scientific interests are chorioretinal diseases, ocular oncology, and diagnostic techniques in ophthalmology. The interest in retinal diseases has been devoted  to chronic acquired diseases, investigated from bench to bedside. He has contributed to the knowledge of the effects of different treatment modalities (radiation, thermotherapy, threshold and subthreshold photocoagulation, intraocular drugs) on retinal and choroidal circulation, and on retinal function. He has also particularly worked on new psychophysical visual function diagnostic techniques as microperimetry, applied to retinal blinding conditions .

His research on visual functions is integrated with multimodal retinal imaging.

Elisa Greotti

Elisa Greotti is Research Scientist at the Neuroscience Institute of the National Research Council in Padova.

 

Over the last years, I have been involved in studying calcium (Ca2+) signaling in both health and disease. My research focused on the development of new tools to explore the mitochondrial functionality, generating both genetically encoded Ca2+ indicators and a new mitochondria-targeted channelrhodopsin. These methodologies are instrumental for addressing with novel approaches the role of second messenger heterogeneity in different pathophysiological conditions not only in cell cultures, but also ex vivo and in vivo.

 

Currently, I am interested in studying the role of organelle Ca2+ dynamics in pathophysiology, with a special focus on Alzheimer’s disease.

 

Scopus: https://www.scopus.com/authid/detail.uri?authorId=55838884900&origin=AuthorEval

Eloisa Valenza

Eloisa Valenza is currently Full professor in Developmental Cognitive Psychology (M-PSI/04), Padova University School of Psychology.

 

She is author of 67 scientific contributions among articles published on peer-reviewed international (30) and national (21), academic book chapters (14) and monographs (2). Scopus citation: 996, Scopus h-index: 14.

 

Major research interest

Her research interests focus on cognitive development in infancy, with specific reference to the early effect of attentional, perceptual and postural abilities on high level cognition (e.g., language acquisition). A clear understanding of early cognitive abilities and motor functioning is critical for identifying precocious predictors of atypical development that originate in infancy but continue throughout childhood. Her studies involve typical and at-risk populations and mainly utilize behavioural methodologies, such as eye-tracker system for recording eye movements.

 

Infant Cognitive Lab:  http://www.dpss.unipd.it/babylab/home

Emanuele Menegatti

Emanuele Menegatti is Full Professor of the School of Engineering at Dept. of Information Engineering of University of Padova since 2017.

 

After his graduation in Physics in 1998, he received his MsC in AI & Robotics from the University of Edinburgh (UK) in 2000. Menegatti received his Ph.D. in Computer Science in 2003 from Univ. of Padua. In 2005 he became Assistant Professor and Associate Professor in 2010.

 

Menegatti’s main research interests are in the field of Robot Perception. In particular, he is working on neurorobotics, RGB-D people tracking for camera network, and service robotics.

 

Menegatti is Associated Editor of the journals: “Robotics and Autonomous Systems” (Elsevier), “IPSJ Transactions on Computer Vision and Applications” (Springer), “Frontiers in Neurorobotics” (Frontiers), “International Journal of Advanced Robotic System” (Sage). He has served as Associated Editor for IEEE ICRA Conference and IEEE IROS Conference and IJCAI Conference.

 

He is teaching master courses on “Intelligent Robotics”, “Three-dimensional data processing” and bachelor course in “Computer Architecture” and a course for school teachers on “Educational Robotics”.

 

He was coordinator of the FP7 FoF-EU project “Thermobot” and local principal investigator for the European Projects “3DComplete”, “FibreMap” in FP7; “Focus”, “eCraft2Learn” and “SPIRIT” in H2020. Menegatti also served as Project Reviewer for the European Commission in FP7 and H2020.

 

He was general chair of the 13th International Conference “Intelligent Autonomous System” IAS-13 and was program chair of IAS-14 and IAS-15. He is author of more than 50 publications in international journals and more than 120 publications in international conferences.

 

In 2005, Menegatti founded IT+Robotics, a spin-off company of the University of Padua, active in the field of industrial robot vision, machine vision for quality inspection, automatic off-line robot programming. In 2014, he founded EXiMotion a startup company active in the field of educational robotics and service robotics.

Enrico Collantoni

Enrico Collantoni is Associate Professor at the Department of Neuroscience of the University of Padova.

 

He graduated in Medicine and Surgery in 2010 and completed his residency in Psychiatry in 2016 at the University of Padova.

He completed a Ph.D. in neurosciences at the University of Padua in 2019 with a thesis on a MRI evaluation of the structural brain patterns in anorexia nervosa. During his residency and Ph.D., he spent two internship periods at the neuroimaging Unit of the University of Salerno and at the Neurophysiology & Interventional Neuropsychiatry section of the University Clinic of Psychiatry of the University of Tübingen.

 

He participates in numerous national and international research collaborations and is an active member of the Enhancing Neuroimaging Genetics through Meta-analysis (ENIGMA) Consortium & Eating Disorders working group. His research interest entails the neural mechanisms underlying eating behaviors and the pathophysiology of eating disorders.

 

In his research activity, he employs neuroimaging techniques and cognitive/behavioral assessment methods using mobile applications and virtual reality.

Ettore Ambrosini

Ettore Ambrosini is currently Associate Professor at the Dept. of Neuroscience in Padova.

 

He graduated in Psychology in 2009 at the University “G. d’Annunzio” of Chieti and earned a PhD in Neuroimaging in 2013 at the same University. After a post-doctoral position at the University of Chieti (2013), he was a post-doctoral fellow at the Department of Neuroscience, University of Padova, where (from 2017) he currently holds the position of Associate Professor.

 

His research interests include the understanding of the organization and the neural underpinnings of executive functions, the perception of objects and their semantic representation, and the perception and anticipation of others’ goal-directed actions. To study these topics, he uses different techniques such as psychophysics, eye tracking, brain stimulation (TMS), and neurophysiology (EEG). He is an expert in experimental methodology and data analysis.

 

He has authored about 40 peer-reviewed articles in international scientific journals (h-index 14), and serves as Review Editor for Frontiers in Psychology (Cognition section) and as ad-hoc reviewer for a number of important international journals within the domains of experimental psychology and cognitive neuroscience. He has received several awards for his research work.

 

He has supervised numerous trainees and master students and a PhD student (co-supervision) and has held advanced courses for research methodology and techniques. He currently teaches Neuropsychology.


Publications:

https://scholar.google.it/citations?user=IXzK9J8AAAAJ&hl=en;

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Ettore_Ambrosini

Fabio Sambataro

Fabio Sambataro is Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Padova from 2019.

 

Trained as a psychiatrist at the University of Catania, where he received a PhD in Neuroscience in a joint program with the University of Bari (Prof. A. Bertolino). During his post-doctoral training at the NIMH (Prof. D. Weinberger), and the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (Prof. G. Rizzolatti) he has investigated the brain mechanisms underlying cognition, aging and psychiatric disorders. He was the director of the Clinical Imaging Lab of the pRED, NORD DTA, Roche Innovation Center, Basel, in 2014-2015, when he became associate professor of psychiatry at the University of Udine.

 

His research interests entail the brain mechanisms underlying the pathophysiology and the response to treatment of major psychiatric disorders, including schizophrenia and mood disorders.

 

To pursue our research interests, we use structural and functional neuroimaging, neuropsychology, and genetics using uni- and multivariate models.

 

Publication list:

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2102-416X
https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=5WQpLh4AAAAJ&hl
https://www.scopus.com/authid/detail.uri?authorId=15053801700

Filippo Romanato

Filippo Romanato is Full Professor at the Department of Physics “Galileo Galilei” of the University of Padua.

 

He leads of the local Nanodevices group. http://groups.dfa.unipd.it/nanodevices/index.html

 

Past positions

  • 2008 – 2019. Director of Laboratory for Nanofabrication of Nanodevices (LaNN). http://www.lann.it/
  • 2014- 2019. Group leader of the biomedical characterization group at the Institute of Pediatric Research – Fondazione Città della Speranza (Padova)
  • 2014 -2019. Scientific advisor for SM-Optics (Milan), multinational photonic system industry https://www.sm-optics.com/
  • 1998 Senior researcher and associate member of IOM-CNR, and member of scientific committee of the Facility of Nanofabrication at TASC. https://www.iom.cnr.it/lilit-beamline

 

Education

  • 1989 He graduated top score in Physics from the University of Padua in 1989;
  • 1994 PhD in Physics in 1994 at Dep. Of Physics in Padua

 

Professional experience
1994-1996 Post doc at Padua University.
1996-97 Postdoc at MIT at the Department of Materials Science and Engineering.
1997 Postdoc at the beamline of Materials Science at the European Synchrotron ESRF.
1998-2007 Resercher at TASC- CNR, beam line scientist and responsible
2005-2009 he was Professor at the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.

 

Scientific production and activity

238 scientific papers published in international journals and refereed conference proceedings.
5400+ citations, H-index 34 (source Google Scholar, un 2020);
65+ invited talks at international conferences, conferences, workshops, universities and research centers.
Director/organizer of 3 scientific conferences&workshops.

He is co-author of 14 international patents.

 

Scientific interests

His present activity is devoted to high resolution lithographic and fabrication techniques for the realization of three dimensional nano structures for photonics, plasmonics, and more in general for the development of nanodevices
Advanced optical microscopy (2-photon, STED, second and third harmonic generation).
Responsible for tissue decellularization and recellularization LIFE LAB project.
Responsible for the optical and nanoptical development of 2 photon microscope components.
He studied and developed photonic devices based on the orbital angular momentum of the light.
He is leading projects for the development bioplasmonic sensors, in collaboration with a interdisciplinary team constituted of physicist, chemists, biologists and engineers. Plasmonics is also exploited for photo voltaics applications.
He designed developed and simulated photonic and nano-optical devices.
From a methodological point of view he always pursued the possibility to combine new experiment in nanoscience with a model interpretation in view of a rapid application of the results.
He studied semiconductor epitaxial heterostructures proposing empirical and theoretical models and developing several structural characterization techniques devoted to devices performances optimization and fabrication.
He get experienced in synchrotron based techniques and for the design of beam lines.
He was appointed as beam line scientist in charge of the design and realization of X-ray lithography facility at Elettra Synchrotron and he was co-founder of the jointed micro and nano fabrication group.

 

Other professional activities

2012 Co-founder of spin-off company “Twist-off” for the development of the OAM radio technology, based on radio use with angular orbital moment. According to published articles and public experiments as well as to the submissive patent, a telecommunications company financed the spin-off with 650,000 euros for the development of the OAM radio. Beginning November 6th 2013.
2008 co-founded of ThunderNIL srl, Nanochallenge award for the best nanotechnology spin-off.
2009 co-founder of Protolab srl. spin-off for advanced materials and electronic devices
2010 co-founder of Twist-off, university spin-off for wireless telecommunications.
2014- 2017, scientific advisor of STRAND srl for fiber telecommunication

Chiara Spironelli

Chiara Spironelli is Associate Professor at the University of Padua.

 

She received her first-class degree at the University of Padova in 2003 (Summa cum laude), her qualification as State Registered Psychologist in 2005, and her PhD in 2007. From 2007 to 2011, she achieved three Research Grants, and from May 2012 she is Assistant Professor (M-PSI/02) at the Department of General Psychology of University of Padova. At present, she is Associate Professor at the University of Padua.

 

In addition to the main techniques for the psychophysiological research, she is skilled in administration and evaluation of a large number of batteries to assess the cognitive functioning, for the neuropsychological assessment and the evaluation of the main psychiatric syndromes. Within the international framework, she collaborates with the Reichenau Psychiatry Center, (Prof. Dr. B. Rockstroh, Department of Psychology, University of Konstanz), where she spent a research period on the EEG correlates of language during the PhD courses, and with the SANE POWIC Warneford Hospital (Prof. Dr. T.J. Crow, Department of Psychiatry, Oxford, UK), in a project on electrophysiological correlates of hemispheric specialization for language and the main psychiatric syndromes.

 

From 2004 she supervises students in the last phase of experimental diploma preparation and writing (both for first degrees and master degrees), postgraduate students and internship postgraduates for their training and research activities in the Psychophysiology group (Chief: Prof. A. Angrilli). From 2015 she holds the “Psychobiology of Psychotic Disorders” class within the Master Degree in Clinical Psychology, and from 2016 she also holds the “Psychophysiology” class within the Bachelor Degree in Psychological Science (University of Padova).

 

She was ad hoc referee for several neuroscience journals (e.g., Biological Psychology, Cortex, International Journal of Psychophysiology, NeuroImage, Psychological Research, Psychophysiology and Schizophrenia Research). She won the Young Researchers’ Award, year 2006, of the Italian Psychology Association (AIP) – Experimental section – and the AIP Award for the best PhD thesis, year 2007.

 

Main Research Interests

  • Study of the correlation between different levels of auditory hallucinations/delusions and hemispheric dominance for language in paranoid schizophrenia, bipolar and depressive patients using electrophysiological measures (evoked potential and EEG band analyses);
  • Study of the (normal and pathological) modulation of attention and spatial awareness by concurrent task demands by means of electrophysiological correlates;
  • Study of body posture effects on EEG cognitive functioning in healthy participants and neurological patients;
  • A new approach for contrasting cognitive decline in elderly: measuring cortical reorganization after working memory training with behavioral and electrophysiological (evoked potential and EEG band) indices (Progetto di Ateneo CPDA152872);
  • Study of cortical plasticity mechanisms in aphasic patients before and after the functional recovery using electrophysiological measures (evoked potential and EEG band analyses).

 

Christian Agrillo

Christian Agrillo is Associate Professor at the Department of General Psychology of the University of Padova.

 

He received from M.I.U.R (Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research) the National Scientific Habilitation as Full Professor in “General Psychology, Psychobiology and Psychometrics” (11/E1).

He published more than 70 papers in international journals on human and non-human cognition. In particular, he is interested in the study of numerical abilities of animals. Most of these studies has been covered by important media, such as National Geographic, BBC, CNN and RAI. Recently, he started to use visual illusions as a tool to compare visual perception of vertebrates (e.g., chimpanzees, monkeys, dogs, lions, horses, guppies, zebrafish and bees).

Also, his degree at the conservatory of music of Venice gave him the possibility to teach “Psychology of Music” in several conservatories of music, where he also conducts studies on the impact of prolonged musical training in perceptual/cognitive skills.

 

To date, he is the Associate Editor of one of the most important journals in the field of comparative psychology, “Animal Cognition”. His editorial activity also includes Frontiers in Psychology (Associate Editor), Scientific Reports (member of the Editorial Board), Plos One (Editorial Board) and Animal Behavior and Cognition (Editorial Board).
He attracted more than 300k € of research grants by successfully participating in competitive calls, and served as invited speaker to several international scientific conferences.

 

For a list of peer-reviewed international publications, see: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=FZjZpwwAAAAJ&hl=it&oi=ao

Andrea Guerra

Andrea Guerra is an Assistant Professor in Neurology at the Department of Neuroscience, University of Padua.

 

He graduated in Medicine and Surgery in 2010 and completed his residency in Neurology in 2016 at the Campus Bio-Medico University of Rome (Paolo Maria Rossini’s group and Vincenzo Di Lazzaro’s group), where he developed skills in neurodegenerative disorders (movement disorders and dementia) and clinical neurophysiology.

 

In 2015, he had a clinical-research fellowship in Experimental Neurology and Movement Disorders at the University of Oxford (Peter Brown’s group), where he worked on invasive (i.e. Deep Brain Stimulation – DBS) and non-invasive brain stimulation methods to modulate brain oscillations in patients with movement disorders. From 2016 to February 2023, he worked at the Department of Human Neurosciences, Sapienza University of Rome (Alfredo Berardelli’s group), where he completed his PhD in Clinical-Experimental Neuroscience, spent two years as a post-doc and then became Assistant Professor in Neurology (RTD-A). During these years, he improved his skills in neuropharmacology and advanced treatments for movement disorders, particularly Parkinson’s Disease (PD). In the last ten years, he received various awards from national and international scientific societies for his research and has been an invited speaker at several academic congresses. He has recently won competitive grants funded by the Italian Ministry of Health (“Ricerca Finalizzata”, GR-2021) and the Italian Ministry of University and Research (“Progetti di Rilevante Interesse Nazionale”, PRIN 2022 PNRR), as research project’s PI. In 2022, he was awarded the National Scientific Qualification as Associate Professor of Neurology, and in March 2023 moved to the University of Padua.

 

His research activity focuses on studying brain excitability, connectivity and plasticity changes in patients with movement disorders using various neurophysiological techniques, including transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) and high-density electroencephalography (HD-EEG). He also applies non-invasive brain stimulation methods in these patients to modulate neurophysiological and behavioural functions with potential therapeutic purposes. Finally, he investigates the clinical and neurophysiological effects of DBS in movement disorders and uses local field potentials (LFPs) recordings from the basal ganglia nuclei to improve the understanding of the pathophysiology of these diseases and optimize DBS clinical effects.

 

Scopus: https://www.scopus.com/authid/detail.uri?authorId=24437794700

Angela Favaro

Angela Favaro is Full professor MED/25  (Psychiatry), Padova University School of Medicine. She is also Chief of Psychiatric Clinic at the Hospital of Padova; Chief of the Eating Disorders Unit at the Hospital of Padova; Director of Psychiatry Residency Program.

 

Major Research Interests

– Psychopathology, epidemiology and therapy of eating disorders

– Genetic and neurodevelopmental risk factors for the development of eating disorders. The Eating Disorders Padova Research Group in collaboration with Professor Maurizio Clementi (Clinical Genetics Unit) host a DNA biobank (BIOVEDA)

– Neurocognition in eating disorders and in other types of psychiatric disorders. Functional connectivity correlates of executive functioning in psychiatric disorders.

– Structural and functional neuroimaging in eating disorders, psychiatric disorders, and rare genetic diseases

– Neuroconnectomics of psychiatric disorders.

– Non-invasive repetitive stimulation as a treatment in psychiatric disorders

Antonino Vallesi

Antonino Vallesi is Full Professor in Neuropsychology and Cognitive Neuroscience.

 

He pursued his master degree in Psychology (cum laude) from University of Padua in 2003 and his PhD in Neuroscience (cum laude) at SISSA, Trieste in 2007.  During his PhD, he visited the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, UCL, London (2005). He was a post-doctoral fellow at the Rotman Research Institute at Baycrest, Toronto (2007-2009) and an Assistant Professor at SISSA (2009-2012), and then at University of Padua (2012-2014), where he was then promoted as Associate Professor (2014-2022) and is currently full professor in Psychobiology and Physiological Psychology.

 

In 2011 he received the Bertelson Award from the European Society of Cognitive Psychology, and the “Outstanding Young Person” national award for his research activity from Junior Chamber International-Italy. In 2017, he was the recipient of the SIPF Prize from the Società Italiana di Psicofisiologia e Neuroscienze Cognitive. In 2013 he was funded with an FP7 ERC starting grant with a project on Life Experience Modulation of Executive Function Asymmetries (about 1.5 MEuros; GA #313692).

 

His research interests include the anatomo-functional organization of executive functions, cognitive aging and temporal processing. The methods he uses include neuroimaging, EEG, neuropsychology, neuromodulation and experimental psychology.

 

Prof. Vallesi has supervised over 10 PhD students, 13 postdoctoral fellows, and more than 65 undergraduate, master’s, and trainee students.

 

He has authored approximately 145 peer-reviewed articles in international scientific journals, contributed to 7 book chapters, co-edited one book, and organized various symposia and both national and international conferences. He has also been invited to speak at numerous conferences and research institutes around the world.

 

At the University of Padua, prof. Vallesi has taught courses in Cognitive Neuroscience, Neuroimaging and Brain Stimulation, Foundations of Psychology, and Methodology for the Behavioral Sciences.

 

He is currently Specialty Chief Editor for Frontiers in Psychology: Cognition, and has served as Associate Editor, Guest Editor, Academic board member of various international journals. He has served as an ad hoc reviewer for numerous international journals including Plos Biology, Brain, Neurosci Biobehav R, Cereb Cortex, Neurobiol Aging, Neuroimage, Hum Brain Mapp, J Cogn Neurosci, Cortex, Neuropsychologia etc.

 

Prof. Vallesi has been a grant reviewer for Horizon 2020 MSCA-IF-2016 & FET 2014; MIUR SIR 2014; FP7 HBP Call 2013; NSERC Canada 2011-12; Romanian NCDI 2011-13; OPUS-National Science Centre, Poland etc.

 

If interested in our research, have a look at the Executive Function Lab at Unipd

Antonio Maffei

Antonio Maffei is an Assistant Professor (RTD-a) at the Department of Developmental Psychology and Socialization (DPSS) of the University of Padova.

 

He obtained his Master’s Degree in Neuroscience and Neuropsychological Rehabilitation in 2014, and his PhD in Psychological Sciences in 2019 from the University of Padova (Supervisor: Prof. Alessandro Angrilli).

 

He held positions as a junior and senior postdoctoral fellow at the Department of General Psychology (Supervisor: Prof. Alessandro Angrilli), Padova Neuroscience Center, and Department of Developmental Psychology and Socialization (Supervisor: Prof. Paola Sessa) of the University of Padova. Furthermore, he has been a visiting researcher at the University of Würzburg (Germany) and the Babes-Bolyai University (Romania).

 

His research interests are focused on understanding the psychobiological correlates of emotional behavior in healthy and subclinical populations, taking advantage of a wide range of electrophysiological techniques for measuring activity in the central (EEG/MEG) and peripheral nervous system (ECG, EMG, GSR). Furthermore, he is interested in devising ecological experimental approaches for experimental emotional induction.

 

Active research lines cover the following topics:

  • Characterizing how social support, social relationships, and social isolation shape stress reactivity, with a focus on the cardiovascular component of the stress response
  • Characterizing the psychophysiological implications of emotional contagion of stress
  • Developing new statistical tools for assessing interindividual synchronization in brain and peripheral nervous system activity during ecological emotional induction

 

Scopus: https://www.scopus.com/authid/detail.uri?authorId=57103014500

Scholar: https://scholar.google.it/citations?user=9Tr6JR4AAAAJ&hl=it

 

Aram Megighian

Aram Megighian is Associate Professor in Physiology (DSB, University of Padua)

 

Academic Career

1988 MD degree (University of Padua)
1992 Residency in Neurology (University of Padua)
1996-1997 Research Scientist Dep of Biology (San Diego State University, USA)
1992-2010 Assistant Professor in Physiology
1997- Adjunct Professor Dep of Biology (San Diego State University, USA)
2010- Associate Professor in Physiology (DBS, University of Padua)

 

Research interest

Nervous system function is dedicated to translate, generate and process informations in a binary code based on neuronal electrical response: action potential.
These binary coded informations are exchanged from one neuron to the other connected by synapses in both simple and complex circuits. Eventually these informations are processed generating behavior, i.e. the “total movements made by the intact animal” (Tinbergen, 1955) or  “the internally coordinated responses (actions or inactions) of whole organisms (individuals or groups) to internal and/or external stimuli, excluding responses more easily understood as developmental changes” (Levitis et al. 2009)

 

The aim of our research is to understand:

  • how neuronal informations are transferred from one neuron to the other by synaptic activity
  • how synaptic activity processes and modifies neuronal informations trasnferred from one neuron to the other
  • how synaptic activity could regulate information processing of complex circuits like those involved the higher or elaborated brain functions regulating behavior.
  • the evolutive maintained nervous circuits regulating adaptative behaviors sharing similar cognitive processes.

 

To reach this aim we utilize as animal model the fruitfly, in which

  • it is possible to genetically modify the main actors of the evolutionarily maintained molecular nanomachine regulating synaptic activity
  • analyse the electrical response of a single synapse or a simple nervous circuit
  • analyse different elaborated behaviors generated by the activity of complex neuronal circuits.

Arianna Menardi

Arianna Menardi works as a Researcher (RTD-A) at the Department of Neuroscience, University of Padova.

 

During her career, she collaborated with several national and international research groups. In 2017, she joined the Berenson-Allen Center for Non-invasive Brain Stimulation at Harvard Medical School, where she worked under the Supervision of Prof. Alvaro Pascual-Leone and Dr. Emiliano Santarnecchi in studying cortical excitability (as assessed by Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation-TMS) in Alzheimer’s Disease patients. In 2018 she joined the Brain Investigation and Neuromodulation Lab in Siena, where she worked on network-targeted interventions by means of multi-electrodes transcranial electrical stimulation (tES) during concomitant functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), under the supervision of Prof. Simone Rossi and Dr. Emiliano Santarnecchi. In 2019 she started her PhD at the Padova Neuroscience Center, under the supervision of Prof. Antonino Vallesi, Prof. Maurizio Corbetta and Dr. Emiliano Santarnecchi. Her PhD project focused on the study of interindividual differences in the brain topographical properties for the selection of personalized stimulation targets in the brain. Collaborators to this project included Prof. Marie Banich and Prof. Naomi Friedman for the University of Colorado Boulder, Prof. Albert-Laszlo Barabasi and Dr. Emma Towlson from the Notheastern University, in Boston.

 

More recently, Arianna won a Grant for Young Researchers by the Italian Association for Research on Alzheimer’s Disease to investigate individual alterations in the functional connectivity as a potential early biomarker of pathology progression.

Arianna Palmieri

Arianna Palmieri, Ph.D. (Ancona, 04/05/1979) is Associate Professor at the University of Padova, Department of Philosophy, Sociology, Education and Applied Psychology.

 

She teaches Psychodynamic Psychiatry from 2014. She obtained the National Academic Qualification as Associate Professor in Psychodynamic Psychology scientific field.

 

She earned a Ph.D. in Neurosciences from the Medical School of the University of Padova in 2008. She graduated in Psychology at University of Padova in 2003, postgraduated at four-year school in Psychodynamic Psychotherapy and earned qualification to work as Psychotherapist from 2010. She is member of the College Board of the Ph.D. School in Psychological Sciences of University of Padova from 2015, member of Executive Board of Padua Neuroscience Center from 2016, Visiting Scholar at Stanford University (CA, U.S.A.) in 2016.

 

She is author of about 50 scientific contributions among articles published on peer-reviewed international journals and academic book chapters and monographs. [Scopus citations: 497; Scopus h-index: 13]. She also presented to several national and international scientific congresses also as principal speaker.

 

Her main research activity is directed toward the integration between the neuroscientific approach and psychodynamic constructs, and on research on psychotherapy’s process and outcome. Her current research interest is on interpersonal shared physiology in the clinical setting.

Camillo Porcaro

Camillo Porcaro is an Associate Professor in Bioengineering at the Department of Neuroscience of the University of Padova.

 

He is a computational neuroscientist with a core interest in developing analytical methods for extracting information from non-invasive measures of brain activity. His research focuses on identifying functional brain sources from data obtained through neuroimaging techniques. In 2008 he defended with honours his doctoral thesis in “Functional Neuroimaging: from Cells to Systems” at the Institute of Advanced Biomedical Technologies (ITAB), University of Chieti, Italy. The same year, he became a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Birmingham – School of Psychology, using simultaneous EEG/fMRI. In 2011, he joined the Institute of Neuroscience, Newcastle University, after gaining a highly competitive independent research position.

From October 2011 to September 2021, he was an Independent Researcher at the Institute of Cognitive Sciences and Technologies (ISTC) – National Research Council (CNR), Rome, Italy. Furthermore, in 2014 and 2015, he was invited as Visiting Professor at the Neural Control of Movement Lab, Department of Health Sciences and Technology ETH, Zurich, Switzerland and from 2015 to 2022 as an Adjunct Professor at the Department of Information Engineering at the Polytechnic University of Marche, Ancona (Professor of Bio-imaging and Brain Research at the Department of Biomedical Engineering). In addition, from 2016 to 2020, he was Visiting Professor at the Department of Human Kinesiology, Movement Control & Neuroplasticity Research Group, KU Leuven, Belgium and from 2018 to 2021, he was Head of the Research hdEEG Lab at S. Anna Institute and Research in Advanced Neurorehabilitation (RAN), Crotone, Italy. Finally, since October 2021, he has been appointed Associate Professor at Padua University – Department of Neuroscience. His most successful contributions have involved source extraction with advanced methods, including Independent Component Analysis (ICA) and a modification of this algorithm called Functional Source Separation (FSS). Furthermore, he developed various temporal and spectral constraints (the basis for FSS algorithms) for extracting and validating primary cortical areas. Recently, he has started applying
FSS to EEG data recorded in the MRI environment to improve the quality of EEG data at the individual study level. His recent research focuses on developing functional constraints for the identification of complex cortical networks and the identification of resting-state functional networks (RSN) from EEG and fMRI recordings with the ultimate goal of characterising the neuronal dynamics of these networks using complex nonlinear methods such as Fractal Dimension.

 

He currently holds the following roles:

  • Associate Professor at the Department of Neuroscience (ING-INF/06).
  • Academic Board Member of the PhD in Neuroscience (PNC).
  • IEEE Senior Member.
  • External expert assisting the European Research Executive Agency.
  • Honorary Senior Research Fellow – School of Psychology, Birmingham University Imaging Center (BUIC), Birmingham, UK.
  • Ordinary Member of the National Group of Biomedical Engineering.

 

National scientific qualifications (ASN):

  • Associate Professor in Bioengineering (09/G2 – ING-INF/06).
  • Associate Professor in Physiology (BIO/09 – 05/D1)

Alessandra Bertoldo

Alessandra Bertoldo is Full Professor of Bioengineering at the Department of Information Engineering of the University of Padova. 

 

Her research interests are mainly related to the development of mathematical models for analysis and control of biological systems and to the quantification of functional positron emission tomography and magnetic resonance images. Current personal and collaborative research activities include: Mathematical models for quantitative PET studies, Methods for magnetic resonance functional imaging, Imaging genetics, Non-linear mixed effects modeling, Quantitative multimodal imaging.

 

During her career, she has contributed to several national as well as international research projects. She teaches Imaging for Neuroscience for the Bioengineering Master’s Degree Program at the University of Padova. From 2015, she also teaches Statistical Methods for Bioengineering (Bachelor’s Degree Program in Information Engineering at the University of Padova).

She is the Referent of the Master’s Degree Program in Bioengineering and of the Bachelor’s Degree Program in Biomedical Engineering.

She is member of the board of the Doctoral School on Neuroscience of the Padova Neuroscience Center of the University of Padova.

Since November 2015, she is member of the IEEE-EMBC Technical Committee on Biomedical Imaging and Image Processing.

Since May 2016 she is member of the Board of Directors of the Padova Neuroscience Center, University of Padova. Since March 2017, she is vice-director of the Padova Neuroscience Center of the University of Padova.

In August 2022, she was appointed Director of the Padova Neuroscience Center, University of Padova.

 

Scopus: https://www.scopus.com/authid/detail.uri?authorId=6603190822

Research Gate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Alessandra_Bertoldo

Google scholar: https://scholar.google.it/citations?user=m0GuxsoAAAAJ&hl=en

, , , , , , , , , , , ,

Alessandra Del Felice

Alessandra Del Felice is Associate Professor, University of Padova, Department of Neuroscience.

 

She is an academic clinician in the area of Neurorehabilitation. Her basic training has been as a neurologist, with a special interest in neurophysiology and neurorehabilitation, and holds a Ph.D. in Neuroscience. She has attracted funding at UNIPD, with an on-going H2020 project and several international and national grants.

Her current research area allows her to draw on her experience and skills in neurophysiology and extensive collaboration with national and international medical engineering Departments to improve methodology and outcome measures in this important area of rehabilitation. She has a track record in EEG signal analysis EEG-TMS co-registration, and neurostimulation.

Her current research portfolio includes validation of inertial sensors for movement analysis in clinical practice; EEG-EMG co-registration during overground gait in healthy subjects and during exoskeleton gait in stroke survivors; early neurophysiological and neurobiological biomarkers of recovery after stroke; technological tools prevent falls in the elderly; recovery and long term prognostic markers after coma.

 

She has an extensive collaborative research network, with current national and international collaborations.

She has around 80 peer reviewed articles or book chapters to her name. She has been given several awards for her work and these include the Italian Clinical Neurophysiology Society Young Investigator Award, the Italian Neuroepidemiology Association “Giulia Benassi” Prize and the “G. Pampiglione” Prize by the Italian Neurological Society.

 

Twitter: A_DelFelice

Alessandro Angrilli

Alessandro Angrilli is Full Professor, Psychobiology, Department of General Psychology, University of Padova.

 

Master degree in Biology. PhD in Experimental Psychology with a thesis entitled “Psychophysiology of emotions”. In 1995 spent one year in the Institute of Medical Psychology and Behavioral Neurobiology of Tübingen directed by Prof. Niels Birbaumer. In 1997-1998, Marie-Curie post-doc grant at the University of Konstanz, laboratories of Prof. Thomas Elbert and Brigitte Rockstroh with a project on cortical plasticity of language in aphasic patients after recovery. In 1998, Assistant Professor of Psychobiology at the Department of General Psychology, University of Padova. In 2001, Associate professor and in 2015, Full professor of Psychobiology. He has been supervisor and tutor of several PhD students, for three of whom he was co-tutor with German Universities (Konstanz and Wuerzburg). In 2011-2015 he was coordinator of the PhD Course in Psychobiology in Padova. Since 2003, head of the Microgravity and Brain Plasticity Lab. Since 2013, head of the Psychophysiology Research Labs of his department. Department delegate for all the laboratories of its institution. Associate Editor of Biological Psychology, BMC Neuroscience, Scientific Reports.

 

Main Research Interests

  • Psychophysiology of emotions and empathy and their alteration in psychiatric, personality and neurological disorders;
  • Hemispheric asymmetry of Language in psychotic disorders and its reorganization in dyslexic children and aphasic patients;
  • Cortical plasticity in healthy population and neurological patients;
  • Influence of body posture on cognition, emotion and pain.

Alessandro Bertoli

Alessandro Bertoli is Associate Professor at the Dept. of Biomedical Science.

 

EDUCATION & RESEARCH ACTIVITY

Prof. Alessandro Bertoli got a degree in Physics at the University of Genova (Italy) in 1994 and a PhD in Biochemistry and Biophysics at the University of Padova (Italy) in 2000. At the beginning, his scientific activity, was addressed to the electrophysiological characterization of mammalian CNS and mitochondrial ion channels ion channels. From 2000 to 2002 he had a post-doctoral at the Pharmacological Research Institute “Mario Negri” (Milano, Italy). During this period, he had the possibility to lead a research unit involved in the study of the molecular mechanisms of Parkinson’s disease and other neurodegenerative disorders. In 2002, he moved back to the Dept. of Biological Chemistry (presently, Dept. of Biomedical Sciences) at the University of Padova, where he currently holds a position as Associate Professor.

 

In recent years, Prof. Bertoli has been involved in different research projects on the prion protein (PrP) and prions, the infectious neurotoxic agents derived from PrP misfolding. Very recently, the scientific interest of Dr. Bertoli moved to the pathogenic mechanisms of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, with particular emphasis to the involvement of Ca2+ de-regulation and ER and mitochondrial dysfunctions in disease onset.

 

Prof. Bertoli is co-author of several research articles published on peer-reviewed international journals (http://www.biomed.unipd.it/people/bertoli-alessandro/) and contributed to national and international scientific conferences. He is Review Editor for Frontiers in Neuroscience, and also served as Reviewer for different journals.

Alessandro Salvalaggio

Alessandro Salvalaggio is a neurologist, researcher (RTD-A) at the Department of Neuroscience of the University of Padova.

 

He graduated in Medicine and Surgery in 2012 and completed his residency in Neurology in 2018 at the University of Padova. He completed his PhD in Neuroscience in 2022 at Padova Neuroscience Center, with a thesis on brain disconnection in focal lesions (stroke, gliomas).

 

Main interests:

  • Impact of brain tumors and cancer treatments on clinical outcomes (cognitive and neurological impairment, survival) mediated by structural and functional disconnection.
  • Neurological complications of cancer.
  • Transthyretin amyloidosis and peripheral neuropathies.

 

Scopus: https://www.scopus.com/authid/detail.uri?authorId=56359388100

Google scholar: https://scholar.google.it/citations?user=WwsDAwsAAAAJ&hl=it