Organizers

Domenico Amato

Title: Dr. 

● Affiliation: University of Palermo 

● Contact: domenico.amato01@unipa.it 

● Bio: Domenico Amato is a Researcher at the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, University of Palermo, Italy. He received his Ph.D. cum laude in 2022, a Master degree cum laude in 2018, and a Bachelor degree in 2014, all from the University of Palermo. His research interests include Neural Networks, Deep Learning, Bioinformatics, Computer Vision, and Machine Learning. 

Vincenza Maria Elena Bonfiglio

Title: Full Professor, MD, PhD 

● Affiliation: Biomedicine, Neuroscience and Advanced Diagnostic Department, University of Palermo, Italy 

● Contact: vincenzamariaelena.bonfiglio@unipa.it 

● Bio: Medical degree cum laude at the University of Catania on July 1997; On October 2001 specialization in Ophthalmology (cum laude) at the Institute of Ophthalmology 

of the University of Catania, under Prof. Alfredo Reibaldi. From 30 April to 28 June 2001 she’ve been vitreoretinal visiting surgeon at Instituto de Microcirurgia Ocular of Barcellona (IMO) Hospital, Spain. From November 2001 she attended the Institute of Ophthalmology of the University of Catania. Medical Doctor from from 2001 to 2005 visiting fellow at the Institute of Ophthalmology of the University of Catania. From 2006 to 2010, Medical Doctor at Eye Clinic of the University of Catania she worked in studies on cataract and medical and surgical retinal disease. On 2003 to 2005 - Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) on Neuropharmacology “XVIII” at the University of Catania. From 2012 Medical Doctor at the Eye Clinic of the University of Catania, under Prof. Teresio Avitabile. In 2019 he received the National Scientific. From December 2019 Associate Professor at the Eye clinic, University of Palermo. From march 2020 Chief of the Ophthalmology School, Eye Clinic, “ Policlinico Paolo Giaccone” University of Palermo.In 2022 Full Professor at the Eye clinic, University of Palermo. Author of 92 papers on international journals (H index 20 Scopus) 

Salvatore Calderaro

Title: Dr. 

● Affiliation: University of Palermo - Department of Physics and Chemistry Emilio Segrè 

● Contact: salvatore.calderaro01@unipa.it 

● Bio: Salvatore Calderaro received a master's degree in Computer Science in 2021 from the University of Palermo. From 2021 to 2024, he was a PhD Student in Mathematics and Computational Sciences at the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science - University of Palermo (thesis to be defended). Actually, he is a research fellow at the Department of Physics and Chemistry Emilio Segrè - University of Palermo. His main research fields are Deep Learning, Machine Learning, Graph Representation Learning, Bioinformatics, and Explainable Artificial Intelligence. 

Enea Chisci 

Title: MD, PhDc, Ophthalmology Resident 

● Affiliation: Biomedicine, Neuroscience and Advanced Diagnostic Department, University of Palermo, Italy 

● Contact: enea.chisci@unipa.it 

● Bio: Dr. Enea Chisci is an Ophthalmology Resident at the Policlinico “Paolo Giaccone” in Palermo. He earned his M.D. from the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore (Catholic University of the Sacred Heart) in 2021. Currently, he is pursuing a PhD and focuses his research on advanced diagnostic methods and surgical techniques in ophthalmology. He has participated in various national and international scientific meetings. 

Alberto La Felice 

Title: MD, Ophthalmology Resident 

● Affiliation: Biomedicine, Neuroscience and Advanced Diagnostic Department, University of Palermo, Italy 

● Contact: alberto.lafelice@unipa.it 

● Bio: Dr. Alberto La Felice is an ophthalmology resident at the Policlinico Paolo Giaccone in Palermo. He earned his M.D. from the University of Palermo in 2022. During his residency, he has gained experience in various fields of ophthalmology, with a particular interest in medical retina and vitreoretinal surgery. He has been involved in research projects focusing on retinal imaging and the correlation between hypertension and choroidal-retinal alterations. 

Giosuè Lo Bosco 

Title: phD. 

● Affiliation: Università degli studi di Palermo 

● Contact: giosue.lobosco@unipa.it 

● Bio: Giosuè Lo Bosco is Full Professor of Computer Science at the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, University of Palermo. He took a degree in Mathematics at the University of Palermo in April 2000, and the Phd in Mathematics and Computer Science at the University of Palermo in January 2005. From July to October 2002 he has been visiting student at California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, USA. His teaching activity includes courses of Computer programming, Algorithms, Methodologies and Algorithms for Data Analysis, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning. His research is mainly focused on Machine learning methodologies for computer vision, natural language processing and biomedical data processing. He actually participates in the program committee of several international conferences of Pattern Recognition, Machine Learning, Bioinformatics, Health Informatics. He is also reviewer of several scientific journals. He is associate editor of the BMC Bioinformatics Journal (BioMed Central Ltd) and Information Sciences Journal (Elsevier), coeditor of three books and author of more than 120 scientific publications, also in international journals such as Patten Recognition, Information Sciences, BMC Bioinformatics, Briefing in Bioinformatics, Genomics, EMBO Journal, Nature Communications, Neural Computing and Applications. He participates in several national and international projects. He collaborates with Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA and Thomas J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, NY USA. He participated and leaded several national and international projects such as PRIN, PON, PNRR, Erasmus+. 

Riccardo Rizzo 

Title: Mr. 

● Affiliation: Institute for High-Performance Computing and Networking - National Research Council of Italy - ICAR -CNR 

● Contact: riccardo.rizzo@icar.cnr.it 

● Bio: Riccardo Rizzo is a senior researcher at the Institute of Computing and High-Performance Networks of the CNR. His research concerns machine learning and its applications to the analysis of biomedical data and genomic sequences. He was a visiting professor at the University of Pittsburgh in 2001. He has served on the program committees of many national and international conferences and is on the editorial board of the international journals BMC Bioinformatics, Frontiers in Genomics, and Frontiers in Neuroinformatics. He is the author of more than 150 scientific articles, of which 33 are in international journals such as "IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks", "Neural Computing and Applications", "Neural Processing Letters", and "BMC Bioinformatics". He has participated in numerous national projects 

Maria Vadalà

Title: Associated Professor, MD, PhD, FEBO 

● Affiliation:Biomedicine, Neuroscience and Advanced Diagnostic Department, University of Palermo, Italy, IEMEST, Euro-Mediterranean Institute of Science and Technology, Palermo, Italy 

● Contact: maria.vadala@unipa.it 

● Bio: Maria Vadalà graduated in Medicine at the University of Palermo (Italy); she got PhD in “Neurosensory physiopathology” and specialized in Ophthalmology at the Palermo University where she works as associated Professor in the School of Medicine. She is Board certified by the European Board of Ophthalmology (EBO). She is full time Retina Specialist in the Unit of Ophthalmology of the University Hospital, where she is currently in charge of the Medical Retina Service. Her main fields of interest include retinochoroidal congenital and acquired diseases, particularly age-related macular degeneration, myopia, diabetic retinopathy, macular dystrophies and uveitis, as far as diagnostic, therapeutic and rehabilitative features. 

She is currently principal and/or co-investigator in many sponsored and investigator driven clinical trials on age related macular degeneration, diabetic macular edema, uveitis. She is author of about 50 papers in indexed scientific journals and she has been an invited speaker in national and international meetings. 

Filippo Vella 

Title: Dr. 

● Affiliation: Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche - ICAR 

● Contact: filippo.vella@icar.cnr.it 

● Bio: Filippo Vella is Researcher at Institute for High Performance Computing and Networking (ICAR). He worked at STMicroelectronics, in the Advanced System Technology Division. Then he took his Ph.D in Computer Engineering at University of Palermo. He spent a period as visiting scholar at Center for Signal and Image Processing of Georgia Institute of Technology (Atlanta, USA). His principal research interests are related to machine learning, artificial vision and pattern recognition, computational creativity and quantum computing. He is coauthor of conferences and journals research papers and has registered patents at European and US Patent Office.