NeuRehab 2022 - Summer School at Savona University Campus

Keynote speakers

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Prof. Oliver Röhrle

Oliver Röhrle is a Founding Director of the Institute for Modelling and Simulation of Biomechanical Systems and Professor for Continuum Biomechanics and Mechanobiology at the University of Stuttgart. He is a Fellow of the Stuttgart Center for Simulation Science and a Senior Research Expert at the Fraunhofer IPA in Stuttgart. He received a Master of Science in Mathematics at the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee, USA (1999) and his Diplom in “Wirtschaftsmathematik (Mathematics and Economical Affairs)” at the University of Ulm (2000). After his PhD in Applied Mathematics at the University of Colorado at Boulder, USA (2004), he spent 4 years as a research scientist at the Auckland Bioengineering Institute at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, before returning to Germany in 2008. In 2011, he received the Richard von Mises prize of the GAMM (Society of Applied Mathematics and Mechanics) and in 2012, he was awarded an ERC Starting Grant on „LEAD – Lower Extremity Amputee Dynamics”. He is the Spokesperson of the International Research Training Group (GRK 2198) on “Soft Tissue Robotics” (jointly with the University of Auckland, New Zealand) funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) and the Spokesperson for the newly established DFG Priority Program (SPP 2311) on “Robustly coupling continuum-biomechanical in silico models to obtain active biological system models for later use in clinical applications - Co-design of modeling, Numerics and usability”. His research focuses on various aspects of the musculoskeletal system, e.g., on novel chemo-electromechanical skeletal muscle models, biophysical recruitment models, virtual EMG predictions, continuum mechanical homogenisation techniques for skeletal muscle tissues and forward-dynamics simulations of multi-muscle systems using three-dimensional continuum-mechanical skeletal muscle models. Moreover, he is interested in dental applications.


Prof. Giacomo Severini

Giacomo Severini is a Lecturer in Biomedical Engineering at the School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering. His research is focused on the study of human motor control and motor learning as a mean for developing novel concepts and tools for improving rehabilitation of impaired individuals. He is particularly interested in the development and use of robots in various aspects of the rehabilitation process. His current research investigates novel designs and novel ways to use Robots in rehabilitation therapy, with the aim of maximizing the potential of this technology.  Dr. Severini received his MS and PhD degrees in Electrical Engineering and Biomedical Engineering from Roma Tre University in Rome, Italy, in 2008 and 2012, respectively. He worked as Research Associate at the Motion Analysis Laboratory of the Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital in Boston from 2011 to 2015 and as postdoctoral researcher at Harvard Medical School from 2012 to 2015. He was also a Research Fellow with the Ferrara University Hospital from 2013 and 2016

Prof. Gualtiero Volpe

Gualtiero Volpe received the M.Sc. degree in computer engineering in 1999 and the Ph.D. in electronic and computer engineering in 2003 from the University of Genoa, Italy. Since 2014, he is an Associate Professor at DIBRIS, University of Genoa, where he teaches Multimodal Interfaces to Ph.D. students in Computer Science and Systems Engineering, Multimodal Systems to Master students in computer engineering, and Sound and Music Computing as well as Technologies applied to Performing Arts to Master students in Digital Humanities. His scientific activities are primarily positioned in the area of human-machine interaction, and specifically concern multimodal intelligent and interactive systems. Research topics include techniques for increasing effectiveness in human-machine interaction by endowing machines of intelligent components enabling understanding of nonverbal human behavior and automatic analysis of affective and social interaction. As such research is positioned in the areas of affective computing and social signal processing, towards hybrid intelligence scenarios. A special focus is on real time analysis of human full-body movement with particular reference to computational approaches to movement qualities. He was local Principal Investigator in 4 EU funded research projects and Principal Investigator of a project on rehabilitation of children with motor and cognitive disabilities, funded by the Italian Ministry of University and Research. Moreover, he participated in the scientific and technological coordination of 4 EU projects (H2020 and FP7), and he was work-package leader in 8 EU projects (H2020, FP7, and FP6), work-group leader in an EU Coordination Action, and task leader in 3 EU project (FP7 and FP6). He is author or co-author of 44 papers on international peer-reviewed journals, 19 chapters of international peer-reviewed books, and more than 110 papers in international peer-reviewed conference proceedings. He participated with management roles in scientific and professional associations: board member (2003-2010) and president (2010-2014) of AIMI (Italian Computer Music Association), member of Association for the Advancement of Affective Computing (AAAC), member of Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), board member for the Liguria section (since 2022) of AICA (Italian Association for Information Technology and Automatic Calculation).

Prof. Ivan Vujaklija

Ivan Vujaklija is an assistant professor at the Department of Electrical Engineering and Automation at Aalto University in Finland where he runs the Bionic and Rehabilitation Engineering research group. He holds a degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the University of Belgrade, and an M.Sc. degree in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Lübeck. In 2016 he obtained his PhD degree in human medical sciences at the University of Göttingen, while working as a research assistant at the Institute of Neurorehabilitation Systems. From 2012 until 2014 he worked for Ottobock Healthcare GmbH, one of the world-leading prosthetic manufacturers. In 2014 and 2015 he was a research fellow at Arizona State University and Medical University of Vienna respectively. From 2017 until 2018 he has been working as a research associate at the Department of Bioengineering at the Imperial College London. Prof. Vujaklija was a part of a team of researchers that pioneered techniques for non-invasive spinal interfacing for rehabilitation applications. The same team has successfully introduced a novel, technology driven surgical paradigm for limb reconstruction which is now becoming a clinical state of the art. His research interests include bio-signal processing, advanced control algorithms, prosthetics, rehabilitation robotics, and neural control of movement.

Prof. Erik Cattrysse

Erik Cattrysse is Professor in Musculoskeletal Anatomy at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) in Belgium. He has Masters in Physical Education and in Physiotherapy (Catholic University of Leuven (KULeuven) and in Manual Therapy and a PhD in Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation Sciences from the VUB (Belgium).He is head of the Experimental Anatomy  (EXAN) research group. His PhD study focused on the kinematics of manual mobilization and manipulation (HVT) of the upper cervical spine. Still at present his main field of interest is human anatomical variation and the study of the anatomy and kinematics of the cervical spine in-vitro and in-vivo.  His main ongoing research involves an Integrated Research Project in cooperation with the departments of Engineering, Medical Imaging and Orthopedics regarding the use of Dynamic 3D-CT imaging for in-vivo intra-articular joint kinematics analysis. He currently is responsible for Basic and Advanced Anatomy, Joint-kinematics and dissection courses at bachelor, master and advanced master levels. He has 91 SC-indexed international publications, and over 100 congress-presentations as author or co-author and a similar number of invited lectures, representing an H-index of 15.

Prof. Manuela Chessa

Manuela Chessa is Assistant Professor in Computer Science at Dept. of Informatics, Bioengineering, Robotics, and Systems Engineering of the University of Genoa. Her research interests are focused on the development of natural human-machine interfaces based on virtual, augmented and mixed reality, on the perceptual and cognitive aspects of interaction in VR and AR, on the development of bioinspired models, and on the study of biological and artificial vision systems. She studies the use of novel sensing and 3D tracking technologies and of visualization devices (e.g., 3D monitors and projectors, head-mounted-displays, video see-through and optical see- through devices) to develop natural and ecological interaction systems, always having in mind the human perception. In particular, she is active in studying misperception issues, visual stress and fatigue that arise by using such systems. Recently, she addressed the coherent and natural combination of virtual reality and real worlds, to obtain robust and effective extended reality systems. She has been the Program Co-chair of the HUCAPP International Conference on Human Computer Interaction Theory and Applications. She has been the chair of the BMVA Technical Meeting – Vision for human-computer interaction and virtual reality systems, the chair of the Special Session Computer VISION for Natural Human Computer Interaction – VISION4HCI 2016, Lecturer of the tutorial Natural Human-Computer-Interaction in Virtual and Augmented Reality, VISIGRAPP 2017, and Lecturer for the tutorial Active Vision and Human Robot Collaboration at ICIAP 2017 and ICVS2019. She organized the first four editions of the tutorial CAIVARS at ISMAR2018, 2020, 2021 and 2022. She is author of more than 85 papers in international book chapters, journals and conference proceedings, and co-inventor of 3 patents. She teaches Augmented Reality and Software Technologies for Human-Computer Interaction, for the Computer Science and Bioengineering master’s degree courses at University of Genoa.

Prof. Gianni Vercelli

Born in Genoa (Italy) in 1962, is Associated Professor of Computer Engineering at the University of Genoa. In 1987 he received the magna cum laude degree in Electronic Engineering, with AICA Award for Best Italian Master Thesis in Computer Science. and in 1992 he received a Ph.D. in Computer Science; he joined the University of Trieste as Assistant Professor in 1996, then he came back at University of Genoa, where it is now teaching Semantic Web Technologies and Virtual Reality for Digital Humanities. In 1988 he founded the TAU software house - Men's Automation Technology. From 1999 to 2002 he was director of the Master in Multimedia Technologies for Distance Education at the same university, where since 2003 he has taught the University Master in e-Learning for School, University and Business, and has been scientific manager in national and international projects on web, AI, VR and assistive technologies.

Member of IEEE Computer, RAS & Education Societies, he was one of the founders of the AI & e-Learning working groups of AI*IA and SI-EL. His scientific interests are currently focused on Technology Enhanced Learning, Semantic Web, Digital Humanities, Virtual/Extended Reality, Robotics and Assistive Technologies, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning applied to Health, Disability and Learning, with more than 100 publications in these fields. He is director for the 3DLabFactory Laboratory, working for years on research activities at the Savona Campus as scientific responsible for international and national research projects.  He is co-owner of a patent of a robotic virtual/physical simulator for video-laparoscopic surgery, and co-founder of a start-up company which is working on drone swarms. He is from 2011 the delegate of the University of Genoa to the ITS-ICT Foundation, and recently he has been appointed president of the ICT Centre of the University of Genoa (CeDIA).

Prof. Adriano Capirchio

He is a researcher with a bachelor and master degree in Neurobiology both achieved at Università di Roma “Sapienza”. Subsequently, he obtained the Advanced School in Artificial Intelligence diploma at CNR – Institute of Cognitive Sciences and Technologies. For his Master Degree thesis (developed at ISTC-CNR), he have developed a computational model to investigate the neural mechanisms underlying the interactions between different learning mechanisms in ataxia. he is currently working on a project that uses a deep learning network which takes inputs from sensors that measure the activity of autonomous nervous system in order to classify Human emotional status. His main research interests are computational modelling, Motor learning, Cerebellar disorders, parkinson’s diseases, AI tools for emotion detection.

Prof. Jürgen Pleiss

Jürgen Pleiss (Institute of Biochemistry and Technical Biochemistry, University of Stuttgart, Germany) obtained his PhD degree at the Max-Planck-Institute of Biology, Tübingen, under the supervision of Fritz Jähnig. He then joined the company Biostructure S.A., Strasbourg, to develop software for protein modelling. Since 1995, he is head of the bioinformatics group at the Institute of Biochemistry and Technical Biochemistry, where he obtained his habilitation in 2001. His research activities focus on enzyme design by combining bioinformatics and molecular simulation methods, and on the application of computational biology in white and red biotechnology.

Speakers

Luana Colloca is a physician-scientist and an MPower Distinguished Professor at University of Maryland School of Nursing, Baltimore. Dr. Colloca hold an MD from University of Magna Graecia of Catanzaro, a PhD in Neuroscience from University of Turin and a Master in Bioethics. Additionally, Dr. Colloca completed a post-doc training at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden and a senior research fellowship at the Department of Bioethics, Clinical Center and the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health at National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, US. Dr. Colloca received several prestigious awards such as the IASP Wall Patrick Award for basic research on pain mechanisms and was recently recognized with the University of Maryland MPower Distinguished Professorship Award. Currently, Dr. Colloca leads an NIH-funded research portfolio based on phenotypes of placebo effects in Temporomandibular Disorders, neural mechanisms of observationally-induced hypoalgesia and molecular mechanisms and applications of virtual reality as a nonpharmacological intervention. Dr. Colloca and her team have discovered relevant mechanisms of placebo effects from learning effects to the vasopressin related role, from mechanisms of virtual reality for pain reduction to in-depth psychological, genetic and clinical phenotypes of placebo responders. Dr. Colloca has authored over 162 peer-reviewed articles, edited several books, and The Colloca Lab’s findings have been published in top-ranked journals including JAMA, NEJM,Biological Psychiatry, Pain, Lancet Neurology and have raised interest in the scientific community with over 13000 citations. Dr. Colloca has given over 230 invited Lecture and she has been defined as a ‘public intellectual’ for creating new knowledge, improving education around pain and its modulation, and translating science into the society with the goal to benefit people and their quality of lives. Dr. Colloca has appeared in a variety of stories for The National Geographic, The New Scientist, Washington Post, Science daily, Boston Globe, The New Yorker, Nature, The Guardian, The Wall Street Journal, News and World Reports and USA Today magazines among others.

Prof. Silvia Muceli

Silvia Muceli is an Assistant Professor in Life Science Engineering at Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg, Sweden. She received her master’s degree in Electronics Engineering from the University of Cagliari, Italy, in 2007, and PhD in Biomedical Science and Engineering from Aalborg University, Denmark, in 2013. She worked at the University Medical Center Göttingen, Germany (2011-2017), until she moved to Imperial College London, UK, to work as a research associate at the Department of Bioengineering (2017-2019). Her research focuses on the development of high-density electrodes for electromyography and methods for EMG signal processing with applications in motor control. In this field, she is also active in the development of didactic material and outreach activities with children. Her research interests also include biomedical signal modeling, sensorimotor development, and neuroprosthetics development. She is a member of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Electromyography and Kinesiology, Guest Associate Editor for Frontiers in Neuroscience, Senior Member of the IEEE, treasurer of the Swedish Section of IEEE Women in Engineering, and organizing committee member of the Workforce for Inclusive Science at Chalmers. She has received the Excellence in Signal Processing Award by Texas Instruments, the Women & Technology Prize by Hewlett-Packard, awards by the International Motoneuron Society, and a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowship within the EU Horizon 2020 framework.

Prof. Alberto Rainoldi

Alberto Rainoldi, (1964, MS in Physics and PhD in Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation), Full Professor of Exercise and Sport Sciences and Physiology of the University of Turin, started his research activity in 1996 at the Polytechnic of Turin in the field of the Neurosciences related to the noninvasive assessment of the neuromuscular system. In 2007 he was called by the University of Turin to found the Research Center in Exercise and Sport Sciences and the NeuroMuscular Function research group. The activity of last ten years was twofold oriented: a) to design a surface EMG based method to the non invasive assessment of both muscular phenotype and fatigue profile and b) to design how to certificate and assess the movement quality of healthy individuals. Since 2019 he is Deputy Rector for Welfare, Sustainability and Sport at the University of Turin. 

Prof. Francesca Odone

She is Professor in Computer Science at DIBRIS, University of Genoa, where she teaches Introduction to Programming to first degree students in Computer Science and Computer Vision to master students in Robotics Engineering and in Computer Science. Since 2020 she is Deputy Director of the Department of Informatics, Bioengineering, Robotics and Systems Engineering (DIBRIS) of the University of Genoa. Her research interests are in the fields of computer vision and machine learning, in particular: data-driven methods for automatic visual perception, including object detection, scene understanding, action recognition; motion analysis, behaviour analysis, and pose estimation in video sequences. She is also interested in applying artificial intelligence methods to different application domains, including robotics, assisted living, and video-surveillance. 

Prof. Nicoletta Noceti

She is Assistant Professor in Computer Science at DIBRIS, of University of Genoa, and co-PI of the Machine Learning and Vision Research Unit of the Machine Learning Genoa Center (MaLGa). Her research activity is mainly focused on the design and development of computational models exploitining Computer Vision and Machine Learning for the general goal of understanding dynamic information. Over the years, she has explored the theoretical foundations of Computer Vision and Image Processing and considered applications as human-machine interactions and natural interfaces, robotics, video-surveillance and Ambient Assisted Living. In such contexts, she  developed experience in analysing data of different type and dimensionality, that she is now exploiting in my current collaborations with universities and research institutes, industries and hospitals, to address problems of temporal data analysis at a larger scale.