NEVERMIND PROJECT - Key Persons
Alicia Dunning is a senior consultant with a strong background in market research and commercialisation. Alicia previously held a senior role within the Centre for Global Eco-Innovation, a £9.8 million European funded programme providing targeted business support to SME's across North West England. The support provided included conducting both primary and secondary data analysis and locating potential funding opportunities. To date Alicia has worked with over 100 companies across a wide range of business sectors including; manufacturing, construction, integrated health and social care, transport, medical and surgical technologies, baby and nursery equipment, sports and fitness, and digital technologies. She is skilful in undertaking market research, business planning and business strategy as part of her commercialisation work and has a strong background in data analysis. Qualifications: Master of Enterprise in Business from Manchester Business school (University of Manchester), BSc Sociolog from the University of Manchester and is currently studying for the MRS Advanced Certificate in market and social research to become an accredited member of the Market Research Society.
Antonio Lanatà, PhD, graduated in Electronic Engineering (2001). He received the Ph.D. degree in Automation, Robotics and Bioengineering at University of Pisa (2006), with a dissertation on innovative wearable systems for cardiopulmonary monitoring. Currently, he is a post-doc researcher at the University of Pisa (Italy), and he is pursuing his research work mainly at the Research Center "E. Piaggio". His research interests are focused on developing wireless/wearable UWB systems for biomedical applications and high-level signals processing. Current biomedical fields of application are emotional assessment, mental and consciousness disorders. He has published numerous articles in international scientific journals and author of several book chapters.
Cecilia Vera Muñoz has a PhD in Biomedical Engineering and M.Sc. Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the Technical University of Madrid (Universidad Politécnica de Madrid). She is an expert in the management and technical development of Scientific & Technical Projects dealing with telematics applied to the social and healthcare sector. Her areas of expertise include Human Computer Interaction, user experience assessment, user interaction, users' engagement, and advanced Health Information Systems. She has collaborated in several R&D international and national funded projects both in the areas of e-Health and e-Inclusion. She has recently leaded the Patient System development and validation for cardiovascular disease management within the R&D funded project HeartCycle (FP7), where UPM has developed a complete patient‘s system for patients with cardiovascular diseases, including a coaching and motivation strategy as part of an intervention program for the promotion of healthy lifestyle and disease management. She is currently a member of the EIP-AHA where she participates as co-coordinator of Patient/User activities within Action Group B3 Integrated Care, and as coordinator of the Synergies on Patient/User Empowerment across the 6 action groups.
Job Titles:
- Associate Professor at the General Psychology Department
Claudio Gentili is currently an Associate Professor at the General Psychology Department of the Università degli Studi di Padova and was an Assistant Professor in Clinical Psychology at the University of Pisa from 2009-2015. In 2002 he got his degree in medicine (magna cum laude) with a final dissertation on neurometabolic correlates of aggressive ideation: a PET study on gender differences. In 2006 he received his Ph.D. in Molecular, Metabolic and Functional Exploration of Nervous System and Sensorial systems with a final dissertation on Neurobiological correlates in Social Phobia, an fMRI study on face perception. In 2004 he was a Visiting fellow at Princeton University. From December 2006 to December 2009 he is a researcher in training in clinical psychology at the University of Pisa. Starting as student since 2001 he has joined the research activities of the chair of General Psychology and later with the chair of Clinical Psychology of the University of Pisa. He is board psychotherapist and his main research interest are neurobiological and psychophysiological correlates of normal and pathological behavior. He was an active member of the FP7 PSYCHE project at the University of Pisa where he coordinates the clinical recruitment and experimental activity.
Danuta Wasserman is a Professor of Psychiatry and Suicidology, Chair of the National Centre for Suicide Research and Prevention of Mental Ill-Health (NASP), Karolinska Institutet, Sweden; Director of the WHO Collaborating Centre on Research, Training and Methods Development in Suicide Prevention, President of the European Psychiatric Association (EPA, 2013-2014) and Former President of the International Academy of Suicide Research (IASR). DW received numerous awards and international prizes for her work in the field of suicidology and mental health from renowned organizations such as: International Association for Suicide Prevention, Swedish Medical Association, the American Foundation for Suicide Research, the German Association for Suicide Prevention, and the Nordic Council of Ministers of Health. She has published more than 150 scientific articles in peer-reviewed journals and has written highly acclaimed books (e.g., Depression: the Facts (Oxford University Press 2011, OUP, and the OUP Textbook of Suicidology and Suicide Prevention: a Global Perspective, 2009). The book "Depression: the Facts" received the Science Award of the British Medical Association for the Public Understanding of Science.
Dr. Bernhard Wellhöfer joined GAIA in 2005 and directs GAIA's software engineering unit. He holds a Master's degree in mathematics and a Ph.D. in computer science ("object orientation in compiler construction", University of Osnabrück). His focus at GAIA is on overseeing the development of UI-tech, mobile technology, and analyzing "big data". After finishing his Ph.D., he worked for a small start-up in Hamburg named Verdisoft, a company that developed a mobile solution to deliver personal data (e.g., email, contacts, calendar) in a synchronized way to mobile devices. Verdisoft was then bought by Yahoo, and the product became "Yahoo! Go" - Yahoo's mobile technology platform. At Yahoo, he was responsible for the backend team of "Yahoo! Go". His task was to setup the data center services to run "Yahoo! Go" for millions of Yahoo users and devices, which included scalability, system stability, data security, big data management and regulatory affairs. At GAIA, he directed the development of broca®, which is the expert-system software and an artificial intelligence-based platform "behind" GAIA-products such as deprexis. This platform can be used to develop products that simulate a conversation with a real person, such as a physician or psychotherapist. Technically, broca® is a software-platform enabling the development of web applications for varying devices, including desktop browsers, iOS devices (iPhone and iPad) and Android base devices.
Job Titles:
- Research Director at GAIA
Dr. Björn Meyer is the Research Director at GAIA. Trained as a clinical psychologist at the University of Miami, he completed a postdoctoral fellowships at the Western Psychiatric Institute and the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, and held previous academic posts as Assistant Professor, Lecturer/Senior Lecturer and Research Associate at several universities in the USA, UK and Germany (e.g., Louisiana State University; Roehampton University and City University, London; University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf). He is a certified clinical psychologist specializing in CBT for depression and anxiety disorders (Germany: licensed "psychological psychotherapist") and Honorary Research Fellow at City University, London. He has served as Associate Editor of the journal Psychology and Psychotherapy: Theory, Research and Practice (2005-2011) and has published more than 60 chapters and articles in journals such as the Journal of Abnormal Psychology, Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, Psychological Assessment, the Journal of Medical Internet Research, Internet Interventions, and BMJ. On scholar.google.com, he has 70 publications, 2716 citations and an h-index of 27. He has been involved in grant-funded research for 20 years, with a primary focus on the etiology and treatment of mood disorders and the development and evaluation of internet-based interventions for mental disorders.
Job Titles:
- Scientific Co - Coordinator
Job Titles:
- Clinical Psychologist, CBT
Dr. Gitta Jacob is a clinical psychologist, CBT therapist, and researcher. She is a GAIA employee with an affiliation at the University of Freiburg. Before joining GAIA she had positions as research fellow and psychotherapist at the University Medical Center and the University of Freiburg. Her main focus is on borderline personality disorder, both basic processes and treatment effects. She has international research experience both with regard to studies regarding treatment development and treatment effectiveness, and her studies have been funded - among others - by the German Research Council (DFG), and the Else Kröner-Fresenius-Stiftung for clinical research. On scholar.google.com, she has 46 publications, 565 citations and an h-index of 11. Together with prof. Arntz she received funding for the international trial in the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of schema therapy in groups for patients with borderline personality disorder, and associated funding for the investigation of brain and movement processes in the study patients. She is an internationally well-known psychotherapist and together with prof. Arntz she has written a book about schema therapy which has been translated or is currently being translated into several languages incl. German, Dutch, English, Japanese, Polish, Italian and Ukrainian ("Schema therapy in practice").
Elena Lucchetti received her Degree in Clinical Psychology from the University of Padova in 2011 with a thesis on "the analysis of cardiovascular and autonomicpatterns during Sleep in Essential Hypotension". She spent a period in France where she did an internship and worked with adults with severe disabilities. She continued her training in Milan at the Studi Cognitivi and San Raffaele Hospital, where she worked with patients of axis I and II of the DSM-IV. Since 2013 she has been working as a psychologist in the prevention and safety in the workplace sector, also as a trainer evaluating work-related stress and psychosocial problems. Since 2013, she has also participated in conferences and training courses relative to her field of work and study.
Job Titles:
- Assistant Professor in Psychiatry at the Department
Francesco Oliva is an Assistant Professor in Psychiatry at the Department of Clinical and Biological Sciences, University of Turin, and works as psychiatrist at the Psychiatric Diagnosis and Treatment Service of the "San Luigi Gonzaga" Hospital, Orbassano (Turin), Italy. He received the degree in Medicine and Surgery in 2002 and the post-graduate degree in Psychiatry in 2006, from the University of Turin, Italy. He taught Psychosocial Rehabilitation and Clinical Psychology, and he has taught Alcohol and Addictive Disorders and Psychiatry at School of Nursing and at School of Techniques in Psychiatric Rehabilitation of Turin. Between 2007 to 2011, he worked first as outpatient clinic psychiatrist and then as assistant medical director at the Department of Mental Health of the ASLTO3, Collegno (Turin), Italy. His research has focused on quality of life, alcohol and substance use disorder, personality disorders, personality and coping style of patients with general medical conditions and, more recently, on adult ADHD.
Fátima Casaca has been working for the Cardiovascular Centre of Lisbon University as an administrative assistant since 1997. She graduated in 2006 from the Lisbon Institute of Engineering. She has worked at the Association for the Research and the Development of the Faculty of Medicine since 2004 as a financial consultant of research projects.
Isabel Rocha's primary area of research is the human physiology with a particular focus on the autonomic nervous system and cardiovascular function. Other research interests include urinary bladder regulation; respiratory control, physiology under extreme conditions, biological signal processing, biomedical engineering, medical education and strategic management of organizations for which she received advanced training in INDEG Business School in Lisbon. She is author of over 180 publications among scientific papers, books chapters and peer reviewed proceedings and is member of several scientific societies. Over the years, Professor Rocha has been responsible for the scientific supervision of a number of master and PhD theses, PI in several projects of national and European funding and participates in European research networks and in postgraduate and doctoral programs; she was course director of Medical Physiology at the Faculty of Medicine of Lisbon (FML). She is also a member of FML Scientific Council, FML representative at Innostars Flagship 6 .-Sustainable Continuum of Care to Support Active Living in Europe from the InnoLife-consortium of Healthy Living and Active Ageing of the European Institute of Innovation and Technology, board member and secretary general of the European Federation of Autonomic Societies (EFAS). Also, is an independent physiology expert of the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology, the European Commission (Eurostars programme), the Sorin Group and the coordinator of the MicroG Lisbon on spacial medicine and physiology. He was president of the Portuguese chapter of Engineering for Medicine and Biology Society (IEEE-EMBS) until 2014, advisor to the group of autonomic evaluation in the modernization program of scientific careers (Department of Health (UK), co-founder of IBITron- Innovative Biosciences Instrumentation. Isabel Rocha graduated in 1991 from the Faculty of Pharmacy of Lisbon, and received the degrees of Master (1996), PhD (2000) and Agregação/Habilitation (2008) in Medical Physiology by the Faculty of Medicine of Lisbon. In 1993, she was at Stefan Dawid-Milner lab in Malaga, Spain and from 1994 to 1999, worked with Professor Mike Spyer at the department of Physiology of the Royal Free / UCL Medical School, London, and in the Autonomic Neuroscience Institute of London (director: Professor G. Burnstock). Currently is an Associate Professor with Agregação/Habilitation in Medical Physiology at the Faculty of Medicine of Lisbon and coordinator of the Cardiovascular Autonomic Function group of the Cardiovascular Center of the University of Lisbon.
Job Titles:
- Research Assistant at National Centre for Suicide Research
Jennifer Lees is a Research Assistant at National Centre for Suicide Research and Prevention of Mental Ill-Health (NASP). She holds a Bsc (Hons) in Applied Psychology and is currently undertaking her final semester of MPH Epidemiology at Karolinska Insitutet. She speaks several languages at a high level and has experience in a variety of multicultural settings. Interests lie in mental health, especially in the prevention of mental illness and suicide.
Maria Francesca Egidi graduated in biological science from the University of Milano, Italy, in 1974. She then received the degree in Medicine and Surgery from the University of Milan, Italy, in 1981 and completed the specialization in nephrology in 1984. She joined the Nephrology Division of the University of Milan. In 1991, she was appointed as visiting professor at University of Iowa (IA, USA), hospitals and clinics. In 1993, she became associate professor at University of Pittsburgh, (PA, USA). In 2000, she was appointed as full professor of Medicine at the College of Medicine at the University of Tennessee (TN, USA). She was also the Medical Director for the Kidney and Pancreas Transplantation. From 2007 to 2012 she joined the Medical University of South Carolina. She is currently the Director of the Nephrology, Dialysis and Transplantation Department, and Professor at the University of Pisa. She is author of more than 150 publications, among scientific papers and book chapters.
Job Titles:
- Professor of Bioengineering at the Fotonic
Maria Teresa Arredondo Waldmeyer is a full Professor of Bioengineering at the Fotonic and Bioengineering Department of the Telecommunication Engineering Faculty at the Technical University of Madrid (UPM); she is the director of LifeSTech research group, she is the Director of the Vodafone Chair and Director of Latinamerican Affairs at the same University. Prof. Arredondo has been Principal Researcher of more than 50 Granted Scientific & Technical Projects and EU-funded Projects dealing with Ambient Intelligence applied to the social and healthcare sector environments. Especially, in the areas of: advanced and smart graphical user interfaces and human factors evaluation; systems and services for people with special needs; mobile access to information services; tele-psychiatry, homecare; and intelligent biomedical clothes. Currently, she is leading the UPM participation in some of the most challenging projects funded by the EU in the 7th FP in the area of Ambient Assisted Living. Moreover, she is the author of 10 books and more than 300 scientific papers.
Olimpia Sacchetto is a Textile Designer specialized in prototypes realization, from the material selection and functional requirements till the implementation of the final prototype. She had experience in the preparation of pre collections for brands like Gucci, Burberry, Ballantyne, Zegna, Krizia thanks to her background in the knitting and tricot design as well as in under garments. She joined the team in January 2010 as textile designer and products development.
Job Titles:
- Professor of Clinical Biochemistry
Pietro Pietrini is a Professor of Clinical Biochemistry and Director of the IMT School for Advanced Studies Lucca. He studied medicine and received his Ph.D. in Neurosciences at the Scuola Superiore "SantAnna", Pisa. He spent over a decade at the National Institutes of Health (NIH, Bethesda, MD-USA), and currently collaborates actively with several national and international research groups. He is interested in the in vivo study of the neurometabolic bases of cognition and behavior in humans in physiological conditions and during neuropsychiatric disorders by using in vivo brain functional methodologies in combination with neuropsychological tasks. He has published over 150 papers in peer-reviewed journals, and has received several national and international grants.
Job Titles:
- Coordinator
- Scientific Coordinator
Riccardo Crupi is a Biomedical Engineer, graduated in 2013 with a dissertation on Autonomic nervous System (ANS) evaluation through Heart Rate Variability assessment in healthy subjects undergoing acoustics stimuli. He had an internship on 2015 at Smartex s.r.l. working on sleep disorders monitoring such as Obstructive Sleep Apnoes Syndrome (OSAs), implementing algorithms for their recognition by respiration effort signal. Now working with Smartex s.r.l as software analysis developer for biosignals analysis.
Job Titles:
- Professor in CSEE at Essex
Riccardo Poli is a full professor in CSEE at Essex where he is the director of postgraduate research studies and the coordinator of the BCI Lab. Prof Poli is a biomedical engineer (by first degree, PhD and subsequent research) and an expert in genetic and evolutionary computation, and more generally machine learning and computational intelligence. He is a Senior Fellow of the International Society for Genetic and Evolutionary Computation (now ACM SIGEVO) and a recipient of the Evo* award for outstanding contributions to the field of evolutionary computation. He has over 320refereed publications (and two books), of which 60+ in bioengineering, BCI and related areas and the rest in computational intelligence. Prof Poli is an advisory board member of Evolutionary Computation and was an associate editor of the Journal of Genetic Programming and Evolvable Machines published by Springer, of the Applied Soft Computing Journal published by Elsevier and of Swarm Intelligence published by Springer, until early 2014 when he resigned from these roles to free up research time. He was also a member of the executive committee of the Special Interest Group on Genetic and Evolutionary Computation (SigEVO) of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) until 2013, but asked not to be considered for re-election for the same reasons. Prof Poli has been chair of numerous international conferences, including the 2004 edition of ACM SigEVO's Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference, the largest conference in this field, a tutorial/keynote speaker at 30 international conferences and Summer schools, a programme committee member of approximately 80 international workshops and conferences and a reviewer for 15 international journals. As PI and Co-I he received funding for approximately 4,000,000 in his career. According to Google Scholar he has well over 18,000 citations and an H-index of 52. His work on collaborative BCIs has recently appeared in the New Scientist, the Financial Times magazine and many others.
Rita Paradiso graduated in Physics from the University of Genoa and received her Ph.D. in Bioengineering in 1991. Molecular Electronics, Biosensors, Biomaterials for biomedical applications have been her main research topics. In particular she worked on functionalized surfaces and their characterization. She worked in London during the Ph.D. at the Physics Department of Queen Mary College. In 1993 she got a Post Doctor CE fellowship, at the Molecular Chemical Laboratory - CNE Saclay, France. In 1994 she was Post Doctor fellow at the Department of Material Engineering of the University of Trento. During 1998, she worked at the "IRST-Instituto Trentino di Cultura" on bio-activation of MEMS, FIBIA. From 1998-1999 she was Research Manager of Technobiochip s.r.l.- Marciana (LI)-Italy. She has over 60 scientific publications and conference presentation since 1989. She joined Smartex in 2000 as R&D Manager, and from July 2011 is the CEO of the company. From September 2001 was the coordinator of WEALTHY (IST-2001-37778), from January 2004, was working in MYHEART an Integrated Project (IST-2002-507816) as coordinator of "Functional Bioclothes" consortium, she was involved in Biotex (IST-NMP 016789), Proetex (IST-4 026987), Healthwear (e-TEN 029402), Tremor (ICT-2007-2-224051) and she was the technical coordinator of Psyche (ICT-2009.5.1-247777); she is currently working in e-Sponder (SEC-2009.4.2-242411), Interaction (FP7- 287351) and Welcome (FP7 611223).
Silvia Bianchi received her Masters Degree in Clinical Psychology from the University of Padova. Since 1999, she has been working for different hospices, hospitals, ASL and associations as a clinical psychologist in oncology and palliative care and, since 2002, she has been teaching general and clinical mindfulness (also as scientific referent) for health professionals as part of the "continuing education contest" of M.I.U.R (Italian Ministry of Higher Education University and Research). In 2002, she completed a D.E.A. at the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (École des hautes études en sciences sociales, EHESS) on Science and Buddhism. In 2006, she specialized at the school in Clinical Psychotherapy (mindfulness-based, final dissertation "the I am process of identification and dis-identification through mindfulness) in Florence, Italy. Since 2011, she have been working as supervisor in contemplative mindfulness based supervision at the Karuna institute (London and Devon, UK), as teacher of Mindfulness and MBSR at the Center for Mindfulness (University of Massachusetts, U.S.A.), and as teacher of Dharma and meditation for the international organization FPMT. From 2010 to 2014, she was professor of "General and clinical mindfulness" at the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Florence in the Master "Neuroscience, Mindfulness and Meditation". Since 2012, she has been a professor of "Clinical Mindfulness" at the University of Turin.
Job Titles:
- Research Assistant at the National Centre for Suicide Research
Silvia Segovia is a Research Assistant at the National Centre for Suicide Research and Prevention of Mental Ill-Health (NASP) at Karolinska Institutet. She has an MSc in Public Health from London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in 2014. She also holds a BA in Anthropology and a BA in Midwifery. She has extensive clinical experience on women's health, and research experience related to the coordination and implementation of clinical trials in London.
Vera Geraldes, PhD in Medical Physiology, is an Assistant Professor in Physiology at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Lisbon and post-doctoral researcher in Cardiovascular Autonomic Function lab. She is author of several full papers with peer-review and received two international prizes: in 2011 (Federation of European Physiological Societies) and in 2012 (Portuguese Society of Hypertension) for her work on hypertension and central sympathetic areas. She has a particular research interest in the autonomic cardiovascular control and other mechanisms of blood pressure control, central cardio respiratory interaction and biological signal processing.
Job Titles:
- Senior Lecturer at the National Centre for Suicide Research
Vladimir Carli is a Senior Lecturer at the National Centre for Suicide Research and Prevention of Mental Ill-Health (NASP), Karolinska Institutet (KI). He is a member of the Executive Board of the WPA and EPA Sections of Suicidology. He is Vice President of the International Association of Suicide Prevention (IASP). VC is project leader of the project Suicide Prevention through Internet and Media-based Suicide Prevention (SUPREME), funded by the European Agency for Health and Consumers (EAHC). He is also Assistant Project Leader of the 7th Framework Programme EU funded project Saving and Empowering Young Lives in Europe (SEYLE) and Working in Europe to Stop Truancy Among Youth (WE-STAY). VC is Co-Director of the WHO Collaborating Centre for Research, Training and Methods Development in Suicide Prevention. He recently collaborated with the WHO in the development of the mhGAP intervention guide, by scrutinizing and reviewing the existing medical literature on suicide prevention and producing the evidence-based recommendations that are part of the guide.