Giovanna Varni is an Associate Professor with the Department of Information Engineering and Computer Science (DISI), University of Trento, Italy. Previously she was an associate professor with LTCI, Télécom Paris, Institut polytechnique de Paris, France. Her activities mainly cover social Signal Processing (SSP) and Human Computer Interaction (HCI). She was involved in several EU FP7-FP6 projects and she was PI of the national French project ANR JCJC GRACE (2019-2022). She contributes regularly to organizational roles in international conferences and workshops for which she also serves as a program committee member.

Dr. Marlena R. Fraune (they/them) works to improve today’s robots for diverse users. As Founder and CEO of Plover: Human-Centered Technology Consulting, they draw on their experience in industry and academia. They leverage their real-world experience researching and improving robots for industry, via Toyota Research Institute, Amazon, and Kaleidoscope Innovations, to determine current robot needs and capabilities, and user needs and preferences for those robots. They leverage their decade of academic research experience – including five years as a professor at New Mexico State University, and visiting research positions in Germany and Japan – to develop and answer overarching research questions to meet users’ real needs with robots, such as: How can we promote long-term acceptance of home robots? How can we enhance these robots for interactions across cultures? How can we transcend current accessibility guidelines to create accessible mobile robots? Outside of work, Dr. Fraune enjoys engaging in as many types of dance as possible – from floor work and rolls, to ballroom and fusion, to aerial arts like trapeze – and then sitting down for tabletop games and creative writing.

Filippo Cavallo is Associate Professor in Biomedical Robotics, Human Robot Interaction and Biomechatronics and is leading the BioRobotics and Biomedical Laboratory at the University of Florence, Department of Industrial Engineering, Florence, Italy. He received the Master Degree in Electronics Engineering, Curriculum Bioengineering, from the University of Pisa, Italy, and the Ph.D. degree in Bioengineering at the BioRobotics Institute of Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, Pisa, Italy. He was JSPS visiting researcher at the Takanishi Lab, Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan. He was also expert member to the rapporteur from the European Commission within the INT/852 – Digital transformation / health and care, COM(2018) 233 final, European Economic and Social Committee.

The objectives of his research activities are to promote and evaluate novel service robotics for active and healthy ageing, to identify and validate disruptive healthcare paradigms for neurodegenerative and chronic diseases, focusing on prevention and support for physical and cognitive declines, to optimize the management of working life for improving efficiency, security and QoL of workers in industrial settings. The main scientific and technological challenges concern social robotics, human robot interaction, wearable sensors, Internet of Things and artificial intelligence for robot companion and healthcare applications.

He is co-chair of the IEEE Technical Committee on Human Robot Interaction and Collaboration and Associate Editor of IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters. In addition, he contributed to the International Conference of Social Robotics (General chair in 2022 and Program Chair in 2025); he was Program Co-Chair and Publication Chair of the IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS 2024) and promoter of the IROS2027 in Florence.

He participated in various National and European projects, and he is currently principal investigator of the Olimpia Project about Parkinson disease, Pharaon project on pilots for active and healthy ageing, and scientific responsible of different actions in the Italian Recovery and Resilience plan. He is Editorial Board member of different international journals, member of the scientific committees of several conferences and author of more than 200 papers on conferences and ISI journals. He is also co-founder of two spin-off companies, the Co-Robotics in the field of service robotics and CoAImed in intelligent wearables for healthcare.

E-mail: filippo.cavallo (at) unifi.it

Alberto Pirni is Associate Professor in Moral Philosophy at the Institute of Law, Politics and Development (the Dirpolis Institute) of the Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies in Pisa, Italy. At the SSSA he is the Coordinator of the Research Area in “Ethics and Global Challenges” (https://www.santannapisa.it/en/institute/dirpolis/ethics-and-global-challenges) and member of the scientific board of the PhD program in “Human Rights and Global Politics” and “Health Science, Technology, and Management”. He is the Coordinator of the Curriculum 4 of the National PhD School in “Sustainable Development and Climate Change” – http://www.iusspavia.it/phd-sdc. Furthermore, he is currently the Director of the scientific journal “Lexicon of Public Ethics”.

The main focus of his research revolves around three branches of ethical theory and applied ethics: public ethics, with specific reference to social contemporary philosophy and to institutional ethics; ethics and philosophy of technology, with specific reference to human enhancement, social robotics and robot-companionship, artificial companionship and AI; ethics and climate justice, with specific reference to theories of climate, intergenerational, and energy justice, together with ethics and sustainability.

He is the author of 5 monographs (1 national award mention), 4 collaborative volumes (1 national award), and over 220 essays in volumes and referred national and international journals (in 6 languages). He is the editor and co-editor of over 25 volumes and monographic issues on national and international journals. He is also the co-director of 2 books series and member of the Academic Board of 5 (national and international) scientific journals.

E-mail: alberto.pirni (at) santannapisa.it
Site: https://www.santannapisa.it/it/alberto-eugenio-ermenegildo-pirni

Diego Reforgiato Recupero has been a Full Professor at the University of Cagliari since 2022. He is the director and founder of the Human-Robot-Interaction Laboratory (http://hri.unica.it), co-director and founder of the Artificial Intelligence and Big Data Laboratory (http://aibd.unica.it), co-director of the Semantic Web Laboratory (http://swlab.unica.it/), and a member of the University's Patent and Spin-off Committee. He is involved in research related to Sentiment Analysis, Big Data, Human Robot Interaction, Semantic Web, Natural Language Processing, and Deep Learning.

E-mail: diego.reforgiato (at) unica.it
Site: https://web.unica.it/unica/page/it/diego_reforgiato

Daniele Riboni has been an associate professor at the University of Cagliari since 2015. He has been the coordinator of the Computer Science degree programs at the University of Cagliari and program chair of several international conferences. His main research interests include pervasive healthcare, artificial intelligence and knowledge management.

E-mail: riboni (at) unica.it
Site: https://aibd.unica.it/people/daniele-riboni

PhD Student in DIN, Course: Teaching and Learning Sciences, Cycle XL University of Cagliari, Department of Mathematics and Computer Science – University of Macerata, Department of Education, Cultural Heritage, and Tourism.

I'm Lorenzo, an Italian computer science enthusiast with a strong academic background and a passion for innovation. My journey in technology started with a Bachelor’s and a Master’s degree in Computer Science from the University of Cagliari. 

Currently, I am pursuing a PhD in Teaching and Learning Sciences at the University of Macerata.

E-mail: lorenzo.boi (at) unica.it
Site: https://lorenzoboi.my.canva.site/lorenzo-boi

Federica Casula is a psychologist and psychotherapist with expertise in digital work environments. She holds a Master's Degree in Clinical Psychology (University of Bari "Aldo Moro") and a postgraduate specialization in Health Psychology and Psychotherapy  (University of Cagliari), where she also conducted research on the psychosocial risks and resources of live streaming on platforms such as Twitch.

Her research interests include work-related distress in the creator economy, digital fatigue, emotional labor in online environments, community dynamics, and health promotion in technologically mediated contexts. She is the author of public engagement projects that combine psychological expertise with accessible communication strategies, promoting awareness and collective reflection on mental health in the digital age.

E-mail: federicacasula.psicologa (at) gmail.com
Site: https://www.federicacasulapsicologa.it/

Silvia Maria Massa received her PhD in Mathematics and Computer Science from the University of Cagliari in 2023, where she currently holds the position of fixed-term researcher (RTDa). 

She is a member of the Artificial Intelligence and Big Data Laboratory (http://aibd.unica.it), where she conducts research focused on the application of machine learning and deep learning techniques in the biomedical field. 

She has collaborated with the School of Informatics at the University of Edinburgh and has published several papers in international journals and conference proceedings. 

She has also participated in national and European research projects in the fields of digital health and intelligent sensors.

E-mail: silviam.massa (at) unica.it
Site: https://web.unica.it/unica/page/it/silviam_massa

Elena Ricci is Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Sant’Anna School of Advances Studies in Pisa. She is an Adjunct Professor in the Palliative Care module at the European University of Rome and also serves as Coordinator and Lecturer of the first-level Master’s Program in Psychology and Ethics of Palliative Care at the European University of Rome. Since 2016, she has been collaborating with the interuniversity research center ARETAI, and, since 2022, with the PRACTICE project (Principal Investigator: Prof. Maria Silvia Vaccarezza). Her research interests include virtue ethics applied to healthcare, care ethics, medical ethics, the ethics of emerging technologies, character education, and nudging.

E-mail: elena.ricci@santannapisa.it
Site: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elena-ricci-phd-b2459b17a/