Chairs and Organizers

Assistant Professor (M-PSI/01, ssd E11-1) at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart of Milan (Italy), lecturer of the course “Psychotechnologies for wellbeing” and “Creativity and Design Thinking”. Scientific Senior Member of the Center of Study and Research in Communication Psychology. Director of the Experience Lab and of the Research Unit of Psychology of Music at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart of Milan. Advanced researcher at the Applied Technology for Neuropsychology lab (Istituto Auxologico Italiano, Milan, Italy). In 2020, she got national scientific qualification (ASN) as Associate Professor M-PSI/01, she is Chartered Psychologist (N. 7990) and professional singer. Honoree for the “Best Student Experience” at Proto Awards 2016 Los Angeles (USA) with a project entitled “Body-Swapping: creating the illusion of the embodiment using Virtual Reality”. In 2019, she won the international award "Prize for Mental Health Applications and Ideas" sponsored by the European Alliance of Innovation. My main research focus concerns complex experiences (e.g., the sublime, awe, flow experience, group creativity) as elicited by art (especially, by music) and Virtual Reality (VR). She has published more than 80 articles on these topics. In 2022, she published the first Italian book on awe and the sublime (Publisher: San Paolo Press), the book “Psychology of Salvador Dalì” (Publishers: Out of Nowhere, Repubblica, Le Scienze), and the handbook “Creativity and Design Thinking” (Publisher: The Way press), and I have initiated a new research field concerning Complex Experiences. Her book on “Complex experiences” is now in press (Publisher: Jacabook; Milan). Her work has been featured in international and national media outlets, including the Washington Post, the Scientific American, La Stampa, Repubblica, Corriere della Sera, Il Sole 24 ore, The EurekAlert!, Psychology Today, The Academic Times.

Laura Culicetto is a psychologist currently working as a health researcher at the IRCCS Centro Neurolesi “Bonino Pulejo” in Messina, Italy. She holds a Ph.D. in Cognitive Sciences from the University of Messina, and her background spans neuropsychology, psychophysiology, and neurorehabilitation.

Her main research interests focus on neurodegenerative disorders, the application of virtual reality in clinical and rehabilitative settings, and the exploration of emotional-cognitive mechanisms such as alexithymia. She is also engaged in research on non-invasive neuromodulation techniques, with a particular emphasis on prismatic adaptation.

She is currently enrolled in the first year of the postgraduate residency program in Health Psychology and Psychotherapy, further enriching her clinical expertise alongside her research work.

Francesca Ferraioli holds a Ph.D. in Cognitive Science and is currently a postdoctoral research fellow in Psychometrics at the Department of Cognitive, Psychological, Pedagogical and Cultural Studies (COSPECS), University of Messina. Her research combines cognitive neuroscience, psychophysiology, and electrophysiology to explore human behavior and decision-making processes in immersive and ecologically valid environments, including virtual reality.

She has contributed to studies on motivational arousal and reward sensitivity, with a current focus on investigating corticobulbar excitability through transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) as a potential biomarker of dopaminergic modulation in both healthy individuals and clinical populations.

Francesca’s expertise lies in experimental design, statistics, and computational approaches to behavioral and social neuroscience. She actively collaborates on translational projects that bridge basic research with applied and clinical contexts.

Dr. Palombi is a researcher in Tenure Track in health and sport psychology with broad interests in the psychological processes that shape individuals’ self-regulation of health behaviors. His work focuses on understanding how people initiate and maintain healthy lifestyles through mechanisms such as motivation, goal setting, and self-control. Methodologically, Dr. Palombi employs a range of advanced psychometric and statistical approaches, including Factor Analysis, Path Analysis, Structural Equation Modeling, and Network Analysis. His research aims to inform evidence-based interventions that foster well-being, health promotion, and performance optimization in both everyday and sport contexts

Francesca Borghesi is a researcher at the Department of Psychology, University of Turin. Her primary research area is statistics and psychometrics, in which she has published several works. She is interested in behavioral neuroscience and its applications to psychometric modeling. In particular, she investigates the multidimensional link between affect dynamics and mental flexibility, analyzed through linear and nonlinear psychometric models. She is a statistics teaching tutor at the University of Turin and a junior researcher at the Applied Technology for Neuro-Psychology Lab, Istituto Auxologico Italiano, Milan.