ISA Visiting Professors

Department of origin: Dpto. de Comunicación Audiovisual, Documentación e Historia del Arte,Valencia España

Unibo reference: Guglielmo Pescatore
Department of the Arts

from April 1, 2025 to May 1, 2025

Short bio: Héctor Julio Pérez López is full Professor of Media Aesthetics at the Universidad Politécnica de Valencia (Spain). He is an internationally recognized expert in the study of the narrative and aesthetics of television series. He has led, as principal Investigator, 3 research projects about Serial TV and developed international interdisciplinary collaboration on them in the last 10 years (Theoretical Innovation Strategies in the Analysis of Narration in Television Series, from 2015 to 2018; Interactions between cognitive value and aesthetic properties in contemporary serials, from 2019 to 2022; Multi-Plot Aesthetics and Information Density in Contemporary Television Series, from 2022 to 2024). His pioneering interdisciplinary work has involved collaborating with leading experts in cognitive science, such as Reiner Reisenzein or Joseph Paul Magliano, to explore narrative emotions, such as surprise, or specific features central to seriality, such as multiplot structure, or narrative climaxes. The results of this work have been published in high impact international journals such as: Pérez, H. J., & Reisenzein, R. (2020). On Jon Snow’s death: Plot twist and global fandom in Game of Thrones. Culture & Psychology, 26(3), 384-400. Pérez, H. J. (2022). Aesthetics of the narrative climax in contemporary TV serials. The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 80(2), 214-223. He has been promoter and co-editor, of the first interdisciplinary publication dedicated to TV seriality: Nannicelli, T., & Pérez, H. J. (2021)

Department of origin: School of the Environment, Australia

Unibo reference: Marco Cantonati
Department of Biological, Geological and Environmental Sciences (BiGeA)

from April 1, 2025 to May 16, 2025

Short bio:  Professor Rod Fensham is a global leader in the fields of plant conservation, woody vegetation dynamics, rare plant conservation, fire ecology, and grazing ecology. He also has a leading reputation as an ecological historian. He has also published a very popular book, a guide to the local eucalypts of Brisbane. He is a very experienced public speaker and a very proactive educator at the University of Queensland. He has also become a global expert on spring ecosystems through his work in Australia: - field survey of active and inactive springs; - maintaining a database of springs; - conducting biological survey of springs including discovery of many new species; - working with geologists to resolve hydrogeology of springs; -assessing environmental impacts of mining development on springs; - working with governments and civil servants to establish private and public conservation reserves for springs; - designing a $350M investment in aquifer restoration to provide maximum benefit for springs; - popularising springs through articles, books and television. Professor Fensham has taken this Australian experience into the global arena.He established a Fellowship of the Spring (FoS) currently with 35 members from 19 countries, including many developing nations.

Department of origin: Department of Sociology, East Campus, University of York,

Unibo reference: Veronica Moretti
Sociology and Business Law - SDE

from April 5, 2025 to May 5, 2025

Short bio:  Baptiste Brossard is a sociologist specialising in critical mental health and historical sociology. After studying sociology, anthropology and history at the Ecole Normale Supérieure de Paris and School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences, he worked at the University of Montreal as a postdoctoral researcher and obtained his first position at the Australian National University in 2016. He then joined the Department of Sociology of the University of York in January 2022, where he is now Senior Lecturer. Dr. Brossard's contributions have been recognized through several awards, including the Fondation pour le lien social Young Researcher Award (France, 2014), the Early-in-Career Award from the Society for the Study of Symbolic Interaction (USA, 2021), a teaching award from the Australian National University (2021), and his recent publication was shortlisted for the Foundation for the Sociology of Mental Health Prize (UK, 2023). His work is situated at the intersection of critical sociology (influenced by Bourdieu’s theories of embodiment), historical sociology (drawing on Elias’ processual approach), and micro-sociology. He employs qualitative methods, including interviews, ethnography, archival research, and mixed methods. His previous studies have explored a range of topics, such as selfharm, Alzheimer's disease, behavioural addictions, and the legacy of Charles H. Cooley, whom he has introduced to French audiences as his first translator. Dr Brossard’s last book, co-authored with Amy Chandler, Explaining Mental Illness (Bristol University Press, 2022), offers a critical review of the sociology of mental health. His research agenda currently follows two connected paths: Critical Mental Health, with projects that investigate mental health phenomena such as trauma, depression, and suicide in light of their socioecological contexts; and Historical Sociology, examining interactional and emotional experiences in the West since the eighteenth century.

Department of origin: Department of Neurosurgery and Brain Repair, Morsani College of Medicine, USA

Unibo reference: Michela Gamberini
Department of Biomedical and Neuromotor Sciences - DIBINEM

from April 28, 2025 to May 27, 2025

Short bio:  Vishal Bharmauria Assistant Professor at PhD Department of Neurosurgery and Brain Repair Morsani College of Medicine Tampa General Hospital, University of South Florida , Tampa General Hospita

Department of origin: Department of Sustainable Construction and Building Systems, Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Poland

Unibo reference: Eugenia Rossi di Schio
Department of Industrial Engineering - DIN

from April 24, 2025 to May 24, 2025

Short bio: Prof. Dorota Krawczyk had her Doctoral degree in Technical Science, discipline Environmental Engineering in 2005, and then, in 2018, Doctor hab. degree in Technical Science, discipline Environmental Engineering, both at Bialystok University of Technology. At present she is Associate Professor at Bialystok University of Technology, Head of Department of Sustainable Construction and Building Systems, Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering, and Vice-rector for International Cooperation. Since 2023 she is also Ambassador of the European Climate Pact. Her main research interests include: energy consumption, energy certification of buildings and the possibility of improving the energy performance of facilities; indoor air quality and application of renewable energy sources; buildings energy simulation as a tool to optimize technologies used in a way to decarbonization. She promotes internationalization of higher education, and she adopts innovative approaches to teaching of future engineers. A long experience has been reached in organizing summer schools as a tool for delivering practical skills.

Department of origin: Department of Comparative Human Development, USA

Unibo reference: Lorenzo Tonetti
Department of Psychology "Renzo Canestrari"

from May 1, 2025 to May 31, 2025

Short bio: Dr. Dario Maestripieri is recognized as a leading scientist in the fields of ethology, primatology, evolutionary psychology and anthropology, psychobiology, and socioendocrinology. He has done research on many aspects of human behavior from a comparative, evolutionary, and interdisciplinary perspective. Recently he has also been interested in exploring and integrating the relative contributions of scientific and humanistic disciplines to the generation and transmission of new knowledge about human behavior and the human mind. Dr. Maestripieri has authored or edited 7 books and authored or co-authored more than 260 scientific publications. His work has been cited more than 16,000 times and his H-index is 80. He has obtained more than $ 4 million in research grants from the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Maestripieri was awarded the “B. Grassi Prize” from the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, the Distinguished Scientific Award for Early Career Contribution to Psychology from the American Psychological Association, and a Career Development Award from the National Institute of Mental Health. He has been elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, of the Association for Psychological Science, of the Midwestern Psychological Association, and of the Human Behavior and Evolution Society. He is the Editor-in-Chief of the journal Adaptive Human Behavior and Physiology published by Springer, and of the journal Evolutionary Behavioral Sciences published by the American Psychological Association.

Department of origin: Department of Biology, Canada

Unibo reference: Riccardo Baroncelli
Department of Agricultural and Food Sciences

from May 1, 2025 to May 31, 2025

Short bio: Professor Nicolas Corradi is a leading expert in the Genome Biology of Eukaryotic Microbes, currently a Full Professor at the University of Ottawa. His research focuses on microbial genomics, with particular expertise in arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi, which are crucial symbionts in plant ecosystems. He has published over 80 peer-reviewed articles in top-tier journals, including Nature Microbiology and PNAS, highlighting his contributions to understanding the genetics and evolution of microbial symbioses. Prof. Corradi’s work has been recognized through prestigious awards, such as the University Research Chair in Microbial Genomics, a Mid-Career Research Excellence Award from the International Mycorrhiza Society, 7 year long Fellowhip from the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR) and the Ontario Early Researcher Award. He has secured significant research funding from major agencies, including Genome Canada, NSERC, and MITACS (Industry), supporting projects that explore the ecological roles and genetic diversity of fungi, and its application in agriculture. His international collaborations and numerous invited plenary and keynote lectures at the best conferences in the field and world-class institutions further underscore his status as a prominent scientist in his field, dedicated to advancing knowledge on microbial interactions and their impact on ecosystems.

Department of origin: Faculté de Droit, des Sciences Criminelles et d’Administration Publique, Switzerland

Unibo reference: Carla Bini
Department of Medical and Sugical Sciences

from June 16, 2025 to July 14 2025

Short bio: Professor Taroni is full professor of forensic statistics at the University of Lausanne (Faculty of Law, Criminal Justice and Public Administration, School of Criminal Justice). He develops models for inference and decision-making under uncertainty in forensic science and law. He was awarded grants from the Swiss National Science Foundation and EU Marie Curie Fellowships. 13 PhD students have obtained their degrees with honors. Some of them have been appointed as professors in forensic science, statistics or criminal law. He authored 8 books and more than 260 peer-reviewed articles and chapters in scientific and law journals. He is co-author of the leading book on forensic statistics (Aitken & Taroni 2004, 3rd ed. 2021) and the principal author of books on the use of graphical probabilistic models (2006, 2nd ed. 2014) and on Bayesian decision data analysis (2010). In 2022, he co-authored a Springer openaccess book on the use of Bayes factor for data analysis. Support of research community: The experience gained in lecturing since 2002 was further developed in 2010 in a unique long-distance education project (e-learning) entitled ‘Statistics and the evaluation of forensic evidence’. A MOOC course entitled ‘Challenging forensic science: how science should speak to court’ is freely available on www.coursera.org. He is member of scientific societies and international committees. Engagement for society: Professor Taroni offers pro bono forensic consulting services for international institutions (e.g. Innocence Project New York). He is requested by forensic organisations throughout Europe and abroad (USA, Canada, China) to provide training workshops to forensic scientists. He contributes to guidance documents on evaluative reporting (e.g., European Guidelines). He was an advisor on the use of DNA evidence in investigation for the French (2001) and Swiss (2022) Parliaments.

Department of origin: Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering,Princeton University

Unibo reference: Antonio Maria D'Altri
Department of  Civil, Chemical, Enviromental and Industrial Engineering

from July 1, 2025 to Jult 31, 2025

Short bio:  Prof Glisic is currently Full Professor and Chair of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) at Princeton University. Prof Glisic research interests mainly deal with Structural Health Monitoring (SHM), Smart Structures, and Heritage Structures. His focus is on advanced sensing technologies, universal SHM methods, data analysis & management, and prognostics and decision-making theory; smart kinetic, deployable and adaptable structures; holistic analysis of heritage structures, and engineering and the arts. Prof Glisic research includes long-gauge and distributed fiber optic sensors (FOS), 2-D sensing sheets based on large area electronics (LAE), 3-D sensing techniques based on radio-frequency tags (RF-tags), sensors based on conductive polymers, and ground penetrating radar (GPR); numerical, analytical, and model-free techniques based on structural analysis and machine learning for structural and material identification, characterization of unusual behaviors and prediction of structural performance; documentation, integration and visualization using Virtual Tours, Information Modelling, and Augmented Reality (VT/IM/AR). His application domains include concrete, steel, and masonry structures: bridges, buildings, pipelines, coastal protections, and historical buildings, monuments, and sites. Prof Glisic has an exceptional academic reputation (The Structural Health Monitoring Person of the Year Award in 2013, ISHMII Fellow in 2018). At Princeton University, Prof Glisic teaches the following courses: Statics of Structures, A Social and Multi-Dimensional Exploration of Structures, Structural Health Monitoring, Holistic Analysis of Heritage Structures, Historical Structures: Ancient Architecture's Materials, Construction and Engineering.

Department of origin: Department of Psychology, Canada

Unibo reference: Prof. Matteo Cerri
Dipartimento di  Scienze Biomediche e Neuromotorie

from June 30, 2025 to July 30, 2025

Short bio: Dr. Iaria is a Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Calgary, holding appointments in the Departments of Psychology and Clinical Neurosciences. He also serves as the Director and Research Chair of the Canadian Space Health Research Network (CSHRNet), a non-profit organization comprising over 1,000 principal investigators and trainees from academia and industry. Internationally renowned for his work on human spatial cognition, Dr. Iaria's research delves into the behavioral and neurological mechanisms underlying this cognitive function. In 2008, he identified a new developmental disorder, Developmental Topographical Disorientation (DTD). His unique research on the neurological effects of space travel on astronauts, conducted at NASA, has been pivotal in understanding how brain structure and function are altered during extended missions to the International Space Station. Dr. Iaria has published over 100 peerreviewed articles in prestigious journals, including Lancet Neurology and Trends in Cognitive Sciences. His work has garnered over 7,000 citations, earning him an h-index of 46 and an i10-index of 79. His research has been supported by various institutions, including CIHR, NSERC, SSHRC, Canada's Department of National Defence, and the Canadian Space Agency. His contributions have also been featured in major media outlets like The Guardian, The Atlantic, The New York Times, BBC, and CBC. Since 2009, Dr. Iaria has taught undergraduate and graduate courses on Cognitive and Clinical Neuroscience and supervised students at all levels. He has graduated over 20 graduate students and hosted in his laboratory international students from India, Mexico, Germany, France, and Italy. His students have collectively contributed to over 70 peer-reviewed articles and have presented their work at national and international conferences. Dr. Iaria is frequently invited as a keynote speaker at academic and public events, including recent engagements at McGill Univ.

Department of origin: Department of Computer Science, USA

Unibo reference: Luca Foschini
Department of Computer Science and Engeneering

from June 1, 2025 to July 5, 2025

Short bio:  Cristian Borcea is a Professor in the Department of Computer Science at New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT). He also holds a Visiting Professor appointment at the National Institute of Informatics, Tokyo, Japan. Cristian also served as the Chair of Computer Science Department at NJIT and the Associate Dean for Strategic Initiatives in the College of Computing at NJIT. In these leadership positions, he created a new Department of Data Science and Research Centers in Big Data and Cybersecurity. He received his Ph.D. degree in Computer Science from Rutgers University, and his research interests include mobile computing, vehicular networks, distributed systems, privacy, and computational advertising. Cristian has over 20 years of research experience in these areas and has published over 120 papers in high-quality international conferences and journals. His research has been covered in over 25 media articles in the past several years. He recently served as General Chair for IEEE ICDCS and IEEE MDM conferences, as well as Technical Program Chair of IEEE Mobile Cloud and EAI Mobiquitous conferences. In the past, he has done pioneering work in programming mobile ad hoc networks, routing and applications for vehicular networks, mobile crowdsensing, mobile cloud computing, and machine learning for computational advertising. His current projects focus on federated learning and privacy, with results published in AAAI, ACM WWW, IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing, etc. His recent research has been funded by NSF, AT&T, and Qualcomm.

Department of origin: Department of French and Italian - University of Illinois

Unibo reference: Prof. Francesco Ferretti
Dipartimento di Filologia Classica e Italianistica

from May 01, 2025 to May 31, 2025

Short bio: Eleonora Stoppino is Associate Professor of Italian, Medieval Studies and Comparative Literature at the University of Illinois. She specializes in the literature and culture of the Middle Ages and Early Modern period, with concentrations on literary and cultural theory (gender studies; animal studies; semiotics and narratology; folklore), book and print-media history, Classical reception and translation, epic and romance, conduct texts, travel narratives, romance philology and the history of literary criticism. She works comparatively across different geographic areas of the Mediterranean, including Italy, Spain, Provence, France, and Catalonia. She has published on Dante, Boccaccio, Boiardo, Ariosto, Tasso, the Italian epic tradition, and medieval conduct literature, both in Europe and in the U.S. Her books include Genealogies of Fiction: Women Warriors and the Medieval Imagination in the Orlando Furioso (Fordham University Press, 2011, winner of the AAIS 2012 Book Prize), Performing Homer: The Voyages of Ulysses from Epic to Opera (co-edited with Wendy Heller, 2019), and the complete catalogue of chivalric incunabula printed in Italy (Libri cavallereschi in prosa e in versi, with Anna Montanari, Interlinea, Novara, 2022, supported by a generous grant from the Centro Studi Matteo Maria Boiardo). Professor Stoppino’s work on Ariosto has been internationally recognized, and she was one of the nominated members of the Italian Republic Committee for the 500th anniversary of the publication of Ariosto’s Orlando furioso. She is a reviewer for ANVUR and an elected representative of Italian for the Modern Language Association and the Renaissance Society of America. Her current projects include a book on animals and contagion in Medieval literature and a book on speculative thinking in epic literature.

Department of origin: Faculty VI, Institute of Architecture, Department of Architectural Design, Berlin

Unibo reference: Prof. ssa Annalisa Trentin
Dipartiment of Architecture

from Sept 10, 2025 to October 10, 2025

Short bio: Joerg H. Gleiter (Dr.-Ing. habil.) Since 2012 Full Professor and head of the Department of Architectural Theory at Technical University of Berlin. 2008-12 he held a Professorship of Aesthetics at Libera University di Bozen-Bolzano/Italy. He studied architecture at Technische Universität Berlin, IUAV-Venezia and Columbia University in New York. 1989 diploma in architecture from Technische Universität Berlin and in 1992 M.Sc. in Advanced Architectural Design from Columbia University. PhD in Architectural Theory (2001) at Bauhaus University Weimar and Habilitation (2007) also from Bauhaus Universität Weimar. His doctoral dissertation was on Critical Theory of Ornament and his habilitation on Friedrich Nietzsche and Physiology of Architecture. Prior to his employment as professor of aesthetics in Bozen-Bolzano Gleiter held guest professorships in 2003 at Venice International University (Venice); 2003-2005 at Waseda University (Tokyo) and 2005-2007 at Bauhaus University Weimar. More recently he was invited as visiting professor in 2016 to Brown University (Providence/RI USA), from 2021 to 2024; at Politecnico di Milano and in 2023 at Politecnico di Torino. 2015-19 he was managing director (dean) of the Institute of Architecture, since 2015 Gleiter is member of the academic senate of TU Berlin (AS/EAS), since 2013 he is a member of the Council of the Institute of Architecture, since 2020 he chairs the ethic commission of Faculty VI. Since 2017 he is a regular panel member at the ERC (European Research Council). 2008 Gleiter founded the book series ArchitekturDenken, since then 16 volumes. His main research interests are critical theory of sustainability, transformation of knowledge, ornament theory, architectural theory and philosophy, aesthetics and semiotics. Gleiter is the author of numerous scientific articles in international magazines and book chapters. Recent publications are gleiters universum. architektur (2023); Architekturtheorie zur Einführung (2022).

Department of origin: Département de Science Politique et Relations Internationales, Switzerland

Unibo reference: Prof. Roberto Belloni
Dipartiment of Political and Social Sciences

from Octorber 01, 2025 to November 30, 2025

Short bio: Nenad Stojanović is a political scientist working in the field of democracy studies. In particular, he is interested in the impact of institutions – such as direct democracy and electoral systems – on political actors and citizens, and especially on the institutional accommodation of minorities in so-called “consociational” democracies and/or in culturally and linguistically heterogeneous societies. Over the past five years, he has been increasingly involved in the research projects aimed to address the growing debate on “democracy crisis”, given the rise of populism and ethno-nationalism in Europe and beyond. In that context, prof. Stojanović has explored the role of “democratic innovations”, i.e. novel institutional tools that could help to mitigate the democracy crisis, and has become a leading scholar in Switzerland working in this research area. In particular, with the team of the “Demoscan” project, he has set up the first citizens' assembly in Switzerland, in Sion (2019), made up of a group of citizens chosen by lot. Between 2020 and 2024, with the scientific support of prof. Stojanović, over a dozen of citizens' assemblies have been organized in various Swiss municipalities and cantons, as well as at the federal level. In 2022, he was co-director of an EU project involving the set-up of a citizens’ assembly in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Prof. Stojanović is the author of two monographies: Dialogo sulle quote. Rappresentanza, eguaglianza e discriminazioni nelle democrazie multiculturali (Il Mulino, 2014) and Multilingual Democracy: Switzerland and Beyond (ECPR Press, 2021), as well as a co-editor of three edited volumes. His work has been published in peer-reviewed journals such as The Journal of Politics, Comparative Political Studies, Political Behavior, Journal of Common Market Studies, International Political Science Review, European Political Science Review, and Swiss Political Science Review.