Prizes, Grants and Fellowships
2023 Selected for THRUSTER initiative
with the business idea ’helmEEG’, concerning the integration of
soft EEG electrodes in a crash helmet, in collaboration with Prof. Flavia Vitale (UNIPENN).
2023-2024 Postdoctoral fellowship
at SSSA, The BioRobotics Institute, Pisa-Pontedera (IT) by TMSpath project
- Bando Ricerca Finalizzata 2021 - working on electrophysiological correlates of transcranial magnetic
stimulation as surrogate for pathophysiology in genetic epilepsy, supervised by Prof. Alberto Mazzoni.
2022 Co-winner of EELISA grant
for organizing a spring school “Ethos + Tekhnè: a new generation of AI
researchers”, in collaboration with Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa and École normale supérieure in
Paris. The school will take place in Pisa, 6th-10th of March 2023.
2022 1st ranked at Brain and Art Prize
at Organization of Human Brain Mapping (OHBM) conference in
Glasgow (June 19, 2022 - June 23, 2022), for the section Beautiful Mistakes, with the artwork Neural
Turing Patterns
2022 Best Workshop Poster
at Dynamics and Complexity workshop (DCP22, Pisa, 26-28 May 2022). Title
of the poster: "Mean field model of resting state cortical dynamics in prodromics phases of Alzheimer’s
diseases" (Amato LG, Vergani AA, Mannella R, Mazzoni A)
2021-2023 Postdoctoral fellowship
at SSSA, The BioRobotics Institute, Pisa-Pontedera (IT) by PREVIEW project
- Bando Ricerca in Salute Regione Toscana 2018, working on electrophysiological correlates of prodromal
forms of dementia, such as subjective cognitive decline and mild cognitive impairment, with the aim to
find functional biomarkers able to predict the prodomic path of the patients, supervised by Prof. Alberto
Mazzoni.
2021 2nd ranked at Brain and Art Prize
, NeuroMarseille, with Neural Turing Patterns. The artwork has
been exposed in Marseille at La Pangoline Gallery during the Fall 2021 and it will be exposed during the
Fall 2022 at campuses of Aix-Marseille Université (for more details see the Brain Art section [1]
2020-2021 Postdoctoral fellowship
at INT Marseille (FR) by French ANR Horizontal-V1, working on the project
Visual cortex modelling with classic and neuromorphic machines, supervised by Prof. Laurent Perrinet
and Prof. Frédéric Chavane. The cross-talk between physiological and theoretical approaches was
fostered by the close collaboration with the teams of Frédéric Chavane at INT and Yves Frégnac at UNIC.
The theoretical work is performed in close collaboration with Lyle Muller (Western U) and Jan Antolik
(Prague).
2019-2020 Postdoctoral fellowship
at Middlesex University (UK) by The Human Brain Project (HBP), working
on a topic called NEAL (Neuromorphic Agents that Learn), headed by Prof. Chris Huyck, that is part
of the SP9 Neuromorphic Subproject. The main task was to develop agents for virtual environments
implemented in simulated and emulated spiking neurons.
2018 Best Conference Paper
with the Taylor and Francis prize for the section Imaging and Visualization at
the 15th International Symposium on Computer Methods in Biomechanics and Biomedical Engineering
and 3rd Conference on Imaging and Visualization (CMBBE2018, Lisbon, 26-28 March 2018). Title of
the paper: "Resting State fMRI Functional Connectivity Analysis Using Soft Competitive Learning
Algorithms". After the prizewinning, the conference paper has been extended and published as research
article: Vergani AA, Martinelli S, Binaghi E (2020). Resting state fMRI analysis using unsupervised
learning algorithms. Computer Methods in Biomechanics and Biomedical Engineering: Imaging and
Visualization, 8(3), 252-265.
2015 - 2018 Italian PhD Fellowship
for the PhD program in Computer Science and Computational Mathematics
(XXXI Cicle), University of Insubria, Department of Theoretical and Applied Science, Varese, Italy. The
research activities were at CRAIIM, Centre for Research in Image Analysis and Medical Informatics,
headed by Prof.ssa Elisabetta Binaghi, in collaboration with the Medical Physics Unit, the Neurosurgery
Unit and the Functional Neuroradiology Unit, at Hospital of Varese (Circolo e Fondazione Macchi).
Thesis projects: Contributions in computational intelligence with results in functional neuroimaging.
Supervisor: Prof. Elisabetta Binaghi.
2014 - 2018 Travel Grants
by Human Brain Project (HBP) and Partnership for Advanced Computing in Europe
(PRACE) for attending schools, workshops and short classes.
2012 Civil recognition by the Major of Cairate (VA), Italy.
Qalbertoarturo.vergani@santannapisa.it, aavergani@mgh.harvard.edu
skype: vergani.aa