Monica received a degree in psychology from the University of Florence and the Ph.D. in Humanoid Technologies from the University of Genova (Italy) in 2009. She did a research period at the CNR of Pisa and in the USA. After a Post Doc at the Italian Institute of Technology (IIT), she became the scientific responsible of the Visual-Haptic Lab of the RBCS Unit of the same institute. She is now head of the Unit for Visual Impaired People (U-VIP) unit of the IIT. In 2020 she was awarded the ERC Starting Grant "MySpace," which focuses on investigating critical periods for the development of uni- and multisensory spatial representations in infants and children with blindness. Her work in the scientific community comprises 120 international papers, three book chapters, and more than 300 conference abstracts. Since 2011, she has been a member of the Board of Professors of the Ph.D. Program in Bioengineering and Robotics at the University of Genova. She was the scientific coordinator of two European grants: ABBI (~€2 million) and WeDraw (~€2.5 million). Her research investigates how sensory information are integrated and interact during development in typical and visually impaired children. She worked in strict collaboration with mechanical, electronic, biomedical, and robotic engineers developing novel devices for evaluation and rehabilitation purposes that have been used in many clinical centers and hospitals.
POST DOC RESEARCHER
Alessia received her Master of Science in Psychology from the University of Florence in Italy under the supervision of Prof. Roberto Arrighi with a thesis regarding the influence of attention on visual size perception. She obtained her Ph.D. in Bioengineers and Robotics from the University of Genoa affiliated with the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia under the supervision of Dr. Monica Gori and Luca Brayda. During her Ph.D, she focused on spatial cognition in blind and sighted people, paying particular attention on human echolocation. After her Ph.D., she spent one year of post-doc at the Department of Translational Research and New Technologies of Medicine and Surgery at the University of Pisa working on visual motion processing. In January 2021, she returned to work as post-doc researcher in Dr. Monica Gori lab group (U-VIP, Unit for Visually Impaired People). Her research interests mainly regard multisensory perception, spatial cognition and size perception.
POST DOC RESEARCHER
Walter received his Master Degree in Bioengineering from the University of Genoa under the supervision of Prof. Paolo Massobrio with a thesis regarding the modeling of "up-and-down" states in a computation neuronal network. He obtained a Ph.D. in Bioengineering and Robotics from the University of Genoa affiliated with the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia under the supervision of Dr. Monica Gori and Prof. Giulio Sandini. During his Ph.D., he studied the cognitive impairments in spatial working memory and attention due to congenital blindness. To carry out his project, he was actively involved in developing novel devices based on sound sources (both real and virtual), providing tactile feedback. His research interests mainly regard cognitive development in typical and blind individuals and the design of custom-made and child-friendly technological solutions for the evaluation of these skills in clinical populations.
POST DOC RESEARCHER
Maria Bianca Amadeo is a Post Doc researcher at the Italian Institute of Technology (Genoa, Italy). She received her master's degree in Clinical and Health Psychology from Università Vita-Salute San Raffaele (Milan, Italy) in 2015. She became licensed psychologist in 2016, after one year of formal internship under the supervision of Professor Bruno Bara at the Center for Cognitive Science in the Department of Psychology of the University of Turin. In 2020, she obtained her PhD in Bioengineering and Robotics from the University of Genoa affiliated with the Italian Institute of Technology, under the supervision of Dr. Monica Gori. Her PhD project focused on investigating the neural mechanisms underlying multisensory integration in children and adults with or without disabilities. In addition to her research interests, she is currently attending a school of specialization in psychotherapy (Centro Terapia Cognitiva, Turin, Italy) and she is working as a clinical psychologist.
TECHNICIAN
Claudio Campus graduated in Physics (2005) and received the Ph.D. in Neuroscience (2009) at the University of Genoa. For the duration of his Ph.D. he was member of the Italian National Institute of Nuclear Physics (INFN). He collaborated with the Centre of Sleep Medicine and with the Clinical Neurophysiology Unit of the University of Genoa. From 2009 joined as a post-doc the Italian Institute of Technology in Genoa and from 2016 became a technician within the same institution. He is expert in signal processing, biostatistics and neurophysiology.
Ph.D. student
Silvia Zanchi is a Ph.D. student at the Italian Institute of Technology in Genoa. She graduated with honors in Body and Mind Sciences at the University of Turin (Turin, Italy). She is enrolled in the register of psychologists in 2021, after one year of research traineeship under the supervision of Dr. Andrea Cavallo at the Italian Institute of Technology. The Ph.D. project focused on the study of locomotion and mobility mechanisms and processes in multisensory contexts, paying particular attention to the role of the vestibular system. In addition, she spent five months at the Birkbeck University of London (UK) under the supervision of Dr. Ferrè. Currently, she is working on the MySpace project led by Dr. Gori.
Ph.D. student
Carolina Tammurello received her master’s degree in Cognitive Neuroscience and Clinical Neuropsychology from University of Padova, in 2020; she graduated cum laude with a dissertation on lesion-symptom mapping models, under the supervision of Prof. Thiebaut de Schotten and Prof. Vallesi. After a postgraduate professional training at the Italian Institute of Technology (IIT) under the supervision of Dr. Amadeo, she won a Ph.D. fellowship in Bioengineering and Robotics at the University of Genoa, affiliated with the IIT; she is currently working on the MySpace project in the Unit for Visually Impaired People (U-VIP), led by Dr. Gori.
Ph.D. student
Stefania Petri obtained a Bachelor’s Degree in Neuro Therapy and Psychomotricity of the Evolutionary Age, in 2016. She graduated with honors with a thesis entitled "Sensory disorders in the first year of life in patients with unilateral injury: incidence and correlation with the development of motor skills and visual functions", under the supervision of Prof. Guzzetta. She obtained her master's degree in "Visual Impairment Rehabilitation" at the University of Genoa with a thesis entitled "Perception of auditory and visual space in children with hemiplegia, with and without visual field deficiency", under the supervision of Dr. Gori. She gained in 2021 a master's Degree in Rehabilitation Sciences of Health Professions, with honors, with a thesis on the use of magnetic resonance imaging for the early diagnosis of central visual disorders in children with periventricular leucomalacia, under the supervision of Prof. Fantacci and Dr. Tinelli.
Since 2020, she has worked as a therapist at the Vision Laboratory of IRCCS Stella Maris in Pisa. In 2022, she won a doctoral scholarship in Bioengineering and Robotics at the University of Genoa, affiliated with IIT. She is working on the MySpace project in Dr. Gori's research group, 'Unit for Visually Impaired People' (U-VIP).
Ph.D. student
Gloria Calafatello obtained a Master's Degree in Human-Computer Interaction at the University of Trento (Italy) in 2022. She spent six months at the Institute of Medical Psychology and Behavioural Neurobiology at Tuebingen University (Germany) to do research for her master's thesis to investigate and identify brain areas capable of predicting motor recovery in stroke patients after the use of rehabilitation therapy with Brain-Computers Interfaces under the supervision of Prof. Andrea Caria and Dr Ander Ramos Murguialday. After her study, she spent six months at the Research centre “The Sense” in Lausanne (Switzerland) as an after-graduation trainee under the supervision of Prof. Micah Murray and Dr Anna Gaglianese, working on a European project to investigate the functional multisensory architecture of the motion processing system. Starting in November 2022 she is a PhD student at the University of Genova affiliated with IIT. Currently, she is working on the MySpace project as a part of the Unit for Visually Impaired People (U-VIP) research group under the supervision of the Dr Gori.
