Position: Associate Professor (MED/34)

Phone: (+39) 049 821 1637

E-mail: alessandra.delfelice@unipd.it

Webpages:
Teaching
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Keywords:
neurorehabilitation, neurophysiology, robotic rehabilitation, EEG, EMG, neurostimulation, TMS, tDCS

My career:
is an academic clinician in the area of Neurorehabilitation. Her basic training has been as a neurologist, with a special interest in neurophysiology and neurorehabilitation, and holds a Ph.D. in Neuroscience. Her current research area allows her to draw on her experience and skills in neurophysiology to improve methodology and outcome measures in this important area of rehabilitation. She has a track record in EEG-TMS and EEG-fMRI co-registration, neuromonitoring and neurostimulation, and EEG signal analysis. Her current research portfolio includes gait analysis in rare syndromes; validation of inertial sensors for gait in clinical practice; EEG-EMG co-registration during overground gait in healthy subjects and during exsoskleteon gait in post-stroke subjects; early biomarkers of recovery after stroke; neurostimulation to improve rehabilitation outcomes in Parkinson Disease and neuropathic pain based on tailored paradigms; neurostimulation as a memory rehabilitative tool in pediatric populations; recovery and long term prognostic markers after coma. She has an extensive collaborative research network, with current national and international collaborations (University of Verona, Italy; University of Bologna, Italy; University of Antwerp, Belgium; King’s College, London; University of Dublin, IRL; University of Ulster, UK; University College London, UK). Techniques that she masters include gait analysis, electromyography (EMG), electroencephalography (EEG), muscular and nerve ultrasound (US), transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), EEG-TMS and EEG-fMRI co-registrations, sleep scoring, neuromonitoring in the operation room, and EEG signal analysis using commercial softwares. She has almost 50 peer reviewed articles or book chapters to her name. She has been given several awards for her work and these include the 2013 Italian Clinical Neurophysiology Society Young Investigator Award, the 2008 Italian Neuroepidemiology Association “Giulia Benassi” Prize and the 2004 “G.Pampiglione “ Prize by the Italian Neurological Society. She has attracted funding at UNIPD, with an on-going H2020 project and several national grants. She is the responsible person of the Outpatient Clinic for Rehabilitation of Motor Disorders due to CNS lesions and of the Movement Analysis Laboratory of her Institution.

Position: Post-doc

E-mail: margherita.bertuccelli@phd.unipd.it

Webpages:
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PNC

Keywords:
neurorehabilitation, neurophysiology, robotic rehabilitation, EEG, EMG, neurostimulation, TMS, tDCS

My career:
Received a BSc degree in Scienze Psicologiche Cognitive e Psicobiologiche (University of Padova, 2017) and a MSc degree in Cognitive Neuroscience and Clinical Neuropsychology (University of Padova, 2019), defending an experimental thesis on sleep and cognitive alterations in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis and Spinal Muscular Atrophy. She is currently a Ph.D. candidate at the Padova Neuroscience Center (PNC, Padova University) under the supervision of Professor Alessandra Del Felice, with a research project titled: “Rehabilitation paradigms in congenital and acquired neurological disorders: quantitative and cognitive assessments, and prospective rehabilitative interventions”. In parallel, she is holding a research grant (PNRR PE8 - Spoke 9) for a research project on the neural correlates and psychometric features of human-robot interactions and embodiment of assistive and rehabilitative wearable robots at the Department of Neuroscience (DNS, Padova University). Her research interest concerns kinematic analysis of movement, body schema alterations and embodiment applied to neurorehabilitation.

Main interests:
My project aims to develop a new evaluation protocol to study human-robot interactions and embodiment of rehabilitative and assistive wearable robot devices. The protocol comprises the assessment of neurophysiological (EEG, EMG), neuropsychological and kinematic (IMUs) variables to identify the factors playing a major role in embodiment, and their interactions. These data will advance the development of a new breed of exoskeletons embodied by end-users and employable in everyday life.

Position: 

E-mail: 

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Keywords:
Therapeutic Exercise, Functional Electical Stimulation, Robotics, Virtual Reality, Graded Motor Imagery

My career:
Alfonc Baba is a physiotherapist that obtained the Bachelor Degree at the Chieti University “G. D’Annunzio” in 2008. Afterwards (in 2011) he got a Professional Master (first level Master) in Musculoskeletal Disorders Rehabilitation (Manual Therapy) at Genua University. He obtained the Master Degree in Rehabilitative Science of Health Professions at Padua University in 2013. In between 2008-2019 he worked at the Department of Neurorehabilitation of the IRCCS San Camillo Hospital in Venice, sharing his working time between clinical activity and research activity mainly carried out in two laboratories: 1) Laboratory of Kinematics and Robotics; 2) Laboratory of Clinical Neurophysiology. During this time he participated at the conception and had collaborate for the implemantation of clinical trials and he is also co-author of a few scientific papers. Moreover he has attended many rehabilitation conferences and congresses as an invited speaker or chairman. In between 2017-2019 he was visiting professor at Shkodra’s Universtity "Luigj Gurakuqi" (Albania) at Physiotherapy Bacheror Course, where he taught Manual Therapy Techniques and Basics of Reserch Methodology and EBM. Since 2020 he work at the Rehabilitation Unit of the Padua University Hospital taking a full-time clinical activity, interested to motor rehabilitation in inpatients with neurological disorders (Neurological Clinic; Stroke Unit; Neurosurgeon Division and Intensive Care Unit). Since 2010, in both workplaces, IRCCS San Camillo Hospital in Venice and at the University Hospital of Padua, he was and is clinical tutor for the neurological area of the bachelor's students in Physiotherapy of of Ferrara and Padua Universities. In 2023 he earned a research fellow position at the Padua’s University Neuroscience Department.

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Position: PhD student

E-mail: francesco.bettella.2@phd.unipd.it

Webpages:

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Keywords:
exoskeleton, assistive technologies, gait impairments, rehabilitation, neuroengineering, neuroscience

My career:
PhD Student in Neuroscience, Ingegnere Meccanico laureato all'Università di Padova, ha svolto diversi lavori di ricerca all'interno del laboratorio di Ingegneria per lo sport e la riabilitazione su diverse tecnologie assistive come carrozzine per uso quotidiano e sportivo.

Main interests:
Il mio progetto di ricerca riguarda lo sviluppo di un esoscheletro intelligente attivo per arti inferiori per uso in ambienti esterni, specialmente in contesti agricoli. L'esoscheletro dovrà sostenere e muovere una persona adulta e sarà dotato di tecnologie di computer Vision come telecamere e sensori laser per riconoscere il terreno circostante e adattare il passo seguendo il percorso libero da ostacoli e più sicuro per l'utente. Inoltre prevede lo sviluppo di una nuova interfaccia utente in grado di inviare i comandi all'Esoscheletro utilizzando determinati segnali neurofisiologici dell'utente.

Position: PhD student

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My career:
Yunfeng Sun, born in 1989 in Hubei Province, China, is a Ph.D. candidate in the 39th cycle at the University of Padova. He is supervised by Prof. Carla Stecco (https://www.cmbm.unipd.it/members/anatomical-sciences/stecco/), with Assoc. Prof. Alessandra Del Felice serving as co-supervisor (https://pnc.unipd.it/del-felice-alessandra/). His doctoral research focuses on the intramuscular connective tissue and muscle spindles in stroke-induced rat models, investigating the effects of exercise on muscle spindle function. With over a decade of experience in rehabilitation medicine, he has led multiple research projects and contributed significantly to the field. From 2023 to 2025, Yunfeng Sun has led two key research projects exploring the role of exercise in regulating sestrin proteins and inflammatory responses. As of 2024, he has published six articles in English as the first or co-first author and has contributed to over ten research papers in Chinese.

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Position: research assistant

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My career:
Gabriele Santin is a research fellow at the Lab. He holds a Master's degree in Automation Engineering (University of Padova) focused on the analysis of electromyographic (EMG) signals, during which he developed an algorithm for their classification. In addition to a research fellowship at the BioRobotic Institute in Pisa that further advanced his work, he has gained experience with programming languages and environments such as MATLAB, LabVIEW and Python. This multidisciplinary background has strengthened his skills in laboratory instrumentation and sensor signals acquisition, bridging engineering and neuroscience applications.

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Position: visiting professor

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My career:
Adjunct Professor A, Level 2 – Full-Time Dedication – Neurofunctional Laboratory – Department of Biological and Health Sciences, Physiotherapy Program at the Federal University of Amapá (UNIFAP). Field: Neurological Physiotherapy. Permanent faculty member of the Graduate Program in Health Sciences at UNIFAP. Currently conducting a postdoctoral fellowship at the Department of Neurosciences, University of Padua – Italy. Ph.D. in Physiotherapy from the Federal University of Pernambuco (UFPE), with a doctoral internship at the División de Neurociencias del Centro de Investigación Biomédica de Michoacán at the Instituto Mexicano del Seguro Social (IMSS). Master’s in Physiotherapy from UFPE. Specialization in Applied Neurosciences – UFPE. Bachelor’s degree in Physiotherapy – State University of Paraíba (UEPB). Holds the Title of Specialist in Neurofunctional Physiotherapy for Adults and the Elderly from Federal Council of Physiotherapy and Occupational Therapy (COFFITO) - Brazil. Leader of the research group Neurosciences and Functionality in Health – UNIFAP. Member of the research group Nutrition, Physical Activity, and Phenotypic Plasticity – UFPE. Member of the Brazilian Association for the Developmental Origins of Health and Disease (DOHaD Brasil) and the Brazilian Association of Neurofunctional Physiotherapy (ABRAFIN).

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