Updates

Javier Albayay received both his bachelor (Universidad Mayor) and master (Universidad de La Frontera) degrees in Psychology in Chile. In 2016 he was awarded with a master’s degree scholarship from the National Commission for Scientific and Technological Research (CONICYT, Chile). His master’s thesis was entitled “Response inhibition as a function of motor complexity: an approach from Simon effect”. From 2016 to 2017 he taught various courses at Universidad de Los Lagos (Chile) to psychology and social work undergraduates. In 2017 he was honored with a doctorate’s degree scholarship for studies in Chile (CONICYT), before enrolling at University of Padova, also awarded with a national scholarship for studies abroad (Becas Chile). Currently, he courses his first year of the PhD Course in Psychological Sciences as a member of the NEMO, interested in exploring the effects of olfactory stimuli on motor response inhibition.

Giovanni Frighetto obtained his bachelor degree in Psychological Sciences and Techniques in 2013 at the University of Verona discussing a thesis entitled “Visual Processes of Learning of Bodily Actions: Short and Long-Term Retention”. He then moved to the University of Padova and in 2015 he received his master degree in Neuroscience and Neuropsychological Rehabilitation with a thesis aimed to study the effects of the blue-enriched light therapy on circadian disturbances in patients with cirrhosis and primary biliary cirrhosis. In 2016, during the post-lauream internship in the Neurophysiology and Neurobiology Laboratory led by Professor Aram Megighian he approached lower level aspects of neurosciences starting to investigate neural processes in the organism model Drosophila melanogaster. In the same year he further attended the “The Toolbox for Investigating the Function of Neural Circuits” course of the CSNII School on Neurotechniques directed by Professor Stefano Vassanelli. In October he started a three-years PhD program in the School of Psychology under the supervision of Professor Umberto Castiello and collaborating with the Lab of Professor Aram Megighian. His PhD program is aimed at understanding the high-neural mechanisms underlying motor and action phenomena in flies.

Maria Grazia Di Bono graduated in Computer Science at the University of Pisa (Italy) in 2002, after a research training period at the Signal and Image Laboratory (SI-Lab), Institute of Information Science and Technologies (ISTI), Centre of National Research (CNR) of Pisa, where she developed her Master Thesis: “An approach based on Self-Organizing Maps for three-dimensional image matching”. She then joined the SI-Lab (ISTI – CNR) of Pisa in 2003, where she spent three years as a research fellow, working on application of artificial neural networks and Machine Learning (ML) techniques in the medical and industrial research fields. In October 2005,  she spent two weeks as a visiting research fellow at the Dorodnicyn Computing Centre of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow (Russia), under the supervision of Prof. Igor B. Gurevich, in the context of a Researcher Exchange Program between the ISTI-CNR and the Dorodnicyn Computing Centre.

In 2006, she joined the Computational Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory (CCNL), Department of General Psychology, University of Padua (Italy), as a PhD student, investigating the effectiveness of different ML techniques for the analysis of fMRI data; in particular in the domain of numerical cognition and motor control.

In 2008, she spent a period of three months as visiting PhD student at the System, Models & Control (SMC) group, Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Leuven (Belgium), under the supervision of Prof. Johan Suykens, investigating the effectiveness of a ML algorithm for the multivariate analysis of fMRI data.

In 2009, she received her PhD in Psychology/Cognitive Science, at the Department  of Developmental Psychology and Socialization (DPSS), University of Padova (Italy), with a Thesis: “Beyond mind reading: Advanced Machine learning Techniques for fMRI data analysis”.

From 2010 to 2015, she worked, as a research fellow , at the CCNL, investigating computational models of visual word recognition and conducting behavioural experiments about the relations among visuospatial attention, numbers, and time. In the last two years at the CCNL, she investigated the neural correlates of visuospatial attention under cognitive load, and she studied functional connectivity during resting state as predictive index of individual performance in different cognitive domains, analysing fMRI and EEG data by means of ML techniques (e.g., SVM classifiers, Graph-theoretical analysis).

She joined the NEMO Lab, at the University of Padova in March 2016. She is interested to explore brain functional plasticity in the motor control domain and to investigate the influence of time on motor control.

Google Scholar : https://scholar.google.it/citations?user=5J4r2dAAAAAJ&hl=it&oi=ao

Rossella Oliva graduated at the University of Padua in 2013 with a Master Degree in Neuroscience and Neuropsychological Rehabilitation, discussing the thesis “Metacognition in individuals with a lifetime history of Anorexia Nervosa: a voxel-based morphometry study”.

In 2012, she attended a Master Practitioner for the treatment of Eating Disorders and Obesity at the National Centre for Eating Disorders (NCfED) in London (UK).  After graduation, during her post-lauream internship period, she continued to work on the Voxel-Based Morphometry study under the supervision of Prof. Chiara Begliomini and she had the chance to take part in a project concerning Food Addiction and Obesity.

Currently she is attending a 3-year PhD program in Psychology at the University of Padua. At NEMO she is investigating the neural correlates of impulsivity as a potential underpinning of food addiction phenomena.

Francesco Ceccarini holds a Master Degree in Psychology from Florence University, where he graduated in 2013 with a thesis entitled “Anger Superiority Effect: the importance of dynamic stimuli”. After graduation, he continued to work at Psychology Department of Florence, focusing his research on attention-emotion interaction, face recognition and error processing. During his post-lauream internship, he had the opportunity to take part in a project concerning facial expression recognition in depressed subjects. In 2015 he started a three-years PhD program in Psychology at Padua University.  At NEMO he is investigating error processing by means of kinematical analysis and event-related potentials (ERP).