Dr. Danilo Pani, Ph.D.

DIEE – Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering
EOLAB – Microelectronics and Bioengineering Lab
University of Cagliari (IT)

Danilo Pani (Ph.D. in Electronic and Computer Engineering in 2006, University of Cagliari, Italy, IEEE EMBS member since 2005) is tenure-track assistant professor of bioengineering at the Dept. of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, University of Cagliari, Italy. His research interests are in the field of real-time digital processing of bio-signals and medical devices. Main achievements regard fetal ECG, textile electrodes, real-time embedded processing of signals from the peripheral nervous systems for motor neuroprostheses, telehealth systems. He is author of more than 70 indexed publications and 2 patents and received 6 awards in conferences and industrial challenges.

He is professor of Electronic Signal Processing and Biomedical Instrumentation for the B.Sc. in Biomedical Engineering, and quality assessment manager for the same course of study. He is member of the board of the National Bioengineering Group, member of the Independent Ethics Committee of the University Hospital of Cagliari, member of the UNINFO Committee for Medical Informatics and participates as Italian expert to CEN Technical Committee 251, WG 2 and the WG for the revision of the standard EN 1064. He has been active in several EU projects, also as WP leader, and national projects, and PI of regional projects. He’s currently PI of a regional project on post-stroke rehabilitation (DoMoMEA) and unit coordinator for the Flag ERA project CONVERGENCE.

Dr. Chiara Rabotti, Ph.D.

Department of Electrical Engineering
Signal Processing Systems Group, Diagnostics Research Lab
Eindhoven University of Technology (NL)

Chiara Rabotti obtained the M.Sc. degree in Electrical Engineering at the University of Florence (Italy) in 2004. She received the Ph.D. degree from the Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) with a thesis on the characterization of uterine activity by electrohysterography. This research, in collaboration with the Máxima Medical Centre (MMC), Veldhoven formed the basis for a spin-off venture, Nemo Healthcare, aiming at the realization of a system for pregnancy monitoring. She actively contributed to the project proposal that in 2010 was awarded a European ErasysBIO grant for modelling and standardization of electrohysterographic measurements during pregnancy, which was one of the main focusses of her Postdoctoral activity. She is currently assistant professor at the Eindhoven University of technology, Signal Processing Systems group and board member of the Biomedical Diagnostic team. Her idea on the possibility of improving In vitro fertilization by characterization of uterine contractions was awarded in 2012 with a personal grant (STW/Veni) and an STW-HTSM grant in 2014, focusing on characterization by electrohysterography and ultrasound quantification, respectively. Currently co-author of over 60 publications, her research interests include electrophysiological signal processing and modelling with special focus on neuromuscular- and perinatal- related applications.

Department of Electronics, Information and Bioengineering
Politecnico di Milano (IT)

Maria G. Signorini is Associate Professor at Department of Electronic, Information and Bioengineering, Politecnico di Milano since 2003. At the same University, she obtained the Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering. 1996-98 she had a Post Doc fellowship at the Biomedical Engineering Dept and in 1999 she became Research Assistant. 2004 -2014 she served as Coordinator of the Biomedical Engineering PhD track at the Doctorate School of the Politecnico di Milano.
Since 2014 she has been charged by the Italian Government as one of the nine members of the national Committee of Experts for the Policy of the Research (CEPR) at the Ministry of the University and Research (MIUR).
Her main research field is focused on biomedical signal processing for extraction of new clinical and diagnostic knowledge. Final goal is to improve healthcare paths and medical devices by introducing both new methodological approaches and technological solutions. She developed application of nonlinear chaotic system and applications of nonlinear analysis to biomedical time series The introduction of nonlinear indices in the analysis of cardio (and neuro also) time series produced original results demonstrating possible improvements of the methods and systems applied to cardiovascular time series analysis and classification. More recently her activity is devoted to multiparameter approaches integrating linear and nonlinear parameters towards the prediction of risk in antepartum fetal monitoring, premature babies, dialysis patients and others cardiovascular disease states. Some research results have been translated into technological solutions with modification of existing instrumentations and biomedical devices (Cardiotocography, Dialysis) or design of new instrumentation (wearable fetal HR monitoring).
Maria G. Signorini participates to many research projects both as principal investigator and co-investigator. She has been PI and National Coordinator of the project MIUR PRIN 2010-12: “TELEFETALCARE: Project of a wearable system for the remote monitoring of the fetus during pregnancy”. The project obtained attention by media in Italy: – www.ansa.it: “Ricerca: una maglietta ‘intelligente’ tra Politecnico e MIT (Research. An intelligent t-shirt between Politecnico and MIT”; www.youtube.com: “Telefetalcare: the first prototype of a fetal wearable electrocardiograph”.
In 2012, Telefetalcare project won the first prize at the “element14 Medical Design Award”, competition on Biomedical Devices by Farnell. Maria G Signorini serves as Referee for several Scientific Journals in the field. (IEEE-EMBS Trans., Physiol. Measur, Chaos, Biom Eng &Comp, …). Since 2007 she is Associate Editor for the IEEE-EMBS Conference, Theme: Biomedical Signal Processing.
Bibliometry : Scopus: 172 documents, 2052 citations, H-index: 23.

Dr. Laura Burattini, Ph.D.

Department of Information Engineering
Polytechnic University of Marche (IT)

Laura Burattini received the PdD degree in Electrical/Biomedical Engineering at the University of Rochester (USA) in 1998 and the Master degree in Electrical/Biomedical Engineering at the Politecnico di Milano (Itay) in 1993. After the PhD she made some working experience in private companies. Since 2006 she joints the Department of Information Engineering of the Università Politecnica delle Marche where she is currently faculty member as Assistant Professor. She teaches the courses of “Bioengineering” (Bachelor Degree) and “ Biomedical Signal and Data Processing” (Master Degree), and is responsible of the “Cardiovascular Bioengineering Lab”. She is promoter of the Erasmus exchange with University of Leiden (The Netherlands) and University of Saragoza (Spain). She contributed to found B.M.E.D. Bio-Medical Engineering Development  srl, an academic spin-off that she served as CEO and President from 2012 to 2016. She is currently in the Editorial Board of The Journal of Electrocardiology and The Open Biomedical Engineering Journal. Her main research interests are processing of cardiovascular signals , specifically for the identification of non-invasive indexes of cardiovascular risk, like T-wave alternans. She is also particular active in fetal applications  related to both fetal electrocardiography and cardiotocography. She is author more than 50 journal papers and 80 proceedings.