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Michela Chiappalone

Assistant Professor (ING-INF/06)
Office: Via Opera Pia 13, 1st floor
Phone: +39-010-353####
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The research interests of Michela Chiappalone are in the field of Neuroengineering, with a special focus on neuroprosthetics, neurostimulation and neurorehabilitation. She graduated in Electronic Engineering (summa cum laude) in 1999 and obtained a PhD in Electronic Engineering and Computer Science from University of Genova (Italy) in 2003, under the supervision of Prof. M. Grattarola and Prof. S. Martinoia. In 2002 she has been visiting scholar at the Dept of Physiology, Northwestern University (Chicago, IL, USA) supervised by Prof F. A. Mussa-Ivaldi. At Northwestern she had the opportunity to work on the first ever developed bidirectional neurorobotic closed loop system involving the brain of a lamprey and a small mobile robot. After a Post Doc at the University of Genova, in 2007 she joined the Neuroscience and Brain Technologies Dept at the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT) as a Post Doc, under the supervision of Prof. S. Martinoia. In 2013 she got a team leader position (‘Researcher’) in the same Institution. In 2015 she has been visiting Professor at KUMED (Kansas City, KS, USA), hosted by Prof. R.J. Nudo, one of most prominent experts of post-stroke plasticity. From 2012 to 2015 M. Chiappalone has been Coordinator of the FET Open European Project BrainBow, judged excellent by the European Commission. In 2017, she joined the Rehab Technologies IITINAIL Joint Lab of IIT to lead a group aimed at interfacing robotic devices with the nervous system for applications in neurorehabilitation. In 2018 she got the national scientific habilitation as Full Professor of Bioengineering. Since March 2021, she has been appointed as Associate Professor of Bioengineering at the University of Genova, where she leads a group working on Neuroengineering following a translational methodology starting from in vivo up to human studies. She authored 75 papers published in International Journals, more than 50 peer-reviewed contributions to International Conferences, 8 Book Chapters and she gave more than 70 scientific talks at International/National Conferences and Research Institutions. She is also Editor of 2 Books. In 2021 she was nominated IEEE EMBS Distinguished Lecturer.

As regards her scientific interests and research directions, since the PhD, Michela Chiappalone specialized on the analysis of signals from electrogenic cells and on closed-loop architectures. She then moved to study network interactions in experimental models in vitro, also dialoguing with artificial devices and, recently, she focused on complex systems (in vivo, humans) with the aim at restoring brain functions by exploiting neuroengineering solutions (e.g. closed-loop systems, biohybrid interactions, neuroprosthetics, neuromodulation). She is also interested in finding electrophysiological biomarkers of neuropathologies and behavioral recovery, by analyzing brain signals at different spatio-temporal scales (e.g. spikes, LFP, EEG) and performing functional connectivity investigations. In order to reach her research objectives, she strongly believes in the importance of a continuous dialogue among patients, clinicians and researchers to foster new technological solutions that can have rapid and well-accepted applications and that can positively impact the life of disabled people.

Neuroprostehtics, neuromodulation, neurorehabilitaiton, neural data analysis, closed-loop, in vitro, in vivo, biohybrid systems