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).