Researchers

Andrea Gaggioli

Andrea Gaggioli obtained a M.Sc. in General and Experimental Psychology from the University of Bologna, in 1999. After initial industrial research experience at the Fraunhofer Institute in Stuttgart, he received his PhD in Psychobiology from the Faculty of Medicine, University of Milan, in 2005. He currently holds the position of Full Professor of General Psychology at the Faculty of Arts and Humanities of Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore. He is the Director of the International Master's Degree Program in User Experience Psychology.

His research activity is framed in the scientific-disciplinary field of General Psychology, with two main lines of investigation: (i) the psychology of experience and its applications in the analysis and design of digital systems and applications (User Experience, UX); (ii) the study of individual and group creativity. He is a member of the Quality Assurance Board of the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart and of the steering committee of the Doctoral School in Psychology.

Carlo Galimberti

Carlo Galimberti is full professor of Social Psychology of Communication at the Course of Studies in Media Languages, Faculty of Arts and Humanities, Catholic University of Milan. At the same university, He has been the former Director of the Center for Studies and Research in Communication Psychology (PSICOM). Author of more than 150 publications on psychosocial topics, he has dealt both with epistemological problems related to different approaches to the study of organizations and with the relationships between the individual, group and organization. His interest in methods of analyzing discursive productions has led him to practice conversation analysis. He is currently working on the construction of an integrated approach to the study of communicative interaction in face-to-face and mediated contexts called the enunciative intersubjectivity model.

Giuseppe Riva

Giuseppe Riva is Full Professor of General Psychology (M-PSI-01) and Director of the Humane Technology Lab at Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore. Former coodinator of the European research projects "VEPSY UPDATED - Virtual Environments in Clinical Psychology," IST-2000-25323; VREPAR "Virtual Reality Environments in Psycho-Neuro-Physiological Assessment and Rehabilitation" and VREPAR 2 (HC 1053 and 1055).

  • President of the International Association of CyberPsychology, Training and Rehabilitation.
  • European Editor of the international impacted scentific journal "CyberPsychology, Behavior and Social Networking."
  • Editor in Chief of the reviewed international scholarly journal "Annual Review of CyberTherapy and Telemedicine"
  • Associate Editor of the international reviewed journal "Journal of CyberTherapy and Rehabilitation".

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Antonio Bova

Antonio Bova is Associate Professor of Social Psychology of Communication (M-PSI-05) at the Faculty of Arts and Humanities of the Catholic University of Milan, where he is professor in the course of Media Languages and in the course of Tourism Sciences and Territorial Enhancement. At the same university, since 2018, he is a member of the Center for Studies and Research in Communication Psychology (CSRPC) and the Laboratory of Communicative Interaction and New Technologies (LICENT).

Prof. Antonio Bova is Associate Editor of the journals Frontiers in Psychology (I.F. 2,990) and Frontiers in Communication, Language Sciences section. Author of more than sixty publications on psychosocial topics, Prof. Bova's research activity is framed in the scientific-disciplinary field of Social Psychology, with two main strands of investigation: (i) the study of social interactions at different levels (individual, interpersonal, intra- and inter-group, organizational, community, institutional) through methods and techniques of data analysis of discursive and conversational nature in online and offline environments; (ii) the study of argumentative dynamics in contexts characterized by a large prevalence of interpersonal interactions.

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Daniela Villani

Daniela Villani is Associate Professor in General Psychology at the Faculty of Education and coordinator of the Research Unit in Digital Media, Psychology and Wellbeing of the Department of Psychology at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Milan. She has collaborated in several national and international projects aimed at investigating the psychological processes involved in the use of technologies in different contexts (health, education and sports) and is the author of numerous scientific publications on the subject. Her interests are directed: to the study of cognitive and affective processes related to the interaction with technologies; to the analysis of individual characteristics implicated in the positive use of digital media, with particular reference to social media and video games; to the analysis of technology acceptance factors; and to the design and implementation of interventions to promote well-being through the use of new technologies (Positive Technology).

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Anna Flavia Di Natale is a Post-Doc Researcher at the Department of Psychology of the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart. Her research interests focus on the application of new technologies, including virtual reality and the Metaverse, for learning. Her research activities involve studies analyzing the effectiveness of virtual educational experiences in terms of social presence, emotions, and cognitive variables, such as flow and cognitive load. Her interests also extend to the study of cognitive and affective processes related to the use of digital media and their impact on well-being.

Alice Chirico

Alice Chirico, Ph.D., is assistant professor in General Psychology at the Faculty of Arts and Humanities, Catholic University of the Sacred Heart of Milan, where she lectures "Psychotechnology for Well-being" at the Master's Degree Course in Psychology of Well-being. She is also lecturer of the course "Creativity and Design Thinking," at the Master's Degree Course in Innovation and Digital Entrepreneurship of the Faculty of Economics in Cremona. Alice has been a visiting scholar at Pennsylvania University (PA) in Philadelphia in 2018, under the supervision of Professor Martin Seligman. Her research mainly concerns the study of complex experiences (e.g., the sublime, awe, flow experience, group creativity) elicited by art (especially music) and through Virtual Reality (VR). She has collaborated on the project "Promoting Education of Scientific and Technological Societal Issues Through Sublime (PROMETHEUS)" funded by the Cariplo Foundation related to the promotion of motivation to learn in students at risk of dropping out of school through sublime-imposed theater experiences. In 2022, she obtained RTDA PON, National Operational Program "Research and Innovation" 2014-2020 themed "The role of Virtual Reality in eco-sustainable behaviors." 

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Stefania Balzarotti

Stefania Balzarotti is assistant professor in General Psychology at Catholic University of Milan. From February 2009 to 2010 research fellow in General Psychology, at the same university. Awarded PhD in Psychology, Doctoral School in Psychology, cycle XX (2005-2008), Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Area M-PSI/01. Thesis title: "Immersed vs. detached: Reappraisal strategies of situated high-impact emotional events. A behavioral, physiological and experiential response analysis." Her areas of research include emotions, emotional regulation and nonverbal behavior, using methods such as nonverbal behavior analysis, eye-tracking, psychophysiological data analysis. She coordinates the psychodiagnostic evaluation service of psychological requirements for driving at the Department of Psychology, Catholic University of Milan.

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Federica Biassoni

Federica Biassoni is assistant professor in General Psychology at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart and co-director of the Research Unit in Traffic Psychology and the Service for the Assessment, Empowerment and Diagnosis of Psychological Requirements for Fitness to Drive. Federica holds a Ph.D. in Communication Psychology and Psy.D. in Transactional Analysis. Her research interest is to investigate, through a range of qualitative and quantitative methodologies, the relationship between intention and human behavior, in the areas of Communication Psychology and Traffic Psychology. She participated as a researcher in the European project Simusafe (SIMUlation of behavioral functions for SAFEr transport), funded by the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program. In the area of Communication Psychology, Federica is involved in research on the role of verbal and vocal nonverbal dimensions in conveying specific communicative intentions and expressing emotions and empathy, and on self-narrative as a tool for enhancing well-being. In the area of traffic psychology, her research projects concern risk perception, risk communication, environmental risk, and road user behavior. She contributes as an editor and reviewer for top-tier international journals and other committees related to the fields of both expertise.

Ilaria Vergine

Ilaria Vergine is a post-doc in social psychology at the Faculty of Letters and Philosophy at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Milan under the Horizon 2020 research project - CounteR - Grant Agreement No. 101021607. At the same university, he received her Ph.D. in Social Psychology in 2021 and is currently a teaching assistant for the courses of Communication for Organizations and Marketing (at Faculty of Psychology), Social Psychology of Communication in Groups and Organizations (at Interfaculty of Humanities - Economics), Social Psychology of Communication (at Faculty of Humanities). Also, she is a teaching assistant in the Brescia branch of the same university for the course of Living the Tourism Experience (at Faculty of Humanities). Ilaria works on the social psychology of communication. In particular, her research interests focus on the analysis of communicative interaction in organizational contexts (with particular attention to "digitally augmented" texts, speeches and conversations), the ways in which television series are enjoyed, and phenomena related to occupational health and safety (e.g., technostress). In addition, Ilaria has gained experience in using methodologies aimed at analyzing both the content of discourses and communicative interactions understood as a set of actions that communicate meanings (e.g., gestures combined with posture, oral verbal, etc.).

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Marta Pizzolante

Marta Pizzolante is Ph.D. candidate at the Doctoral School in Psychology at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart. Her research focuses mainly on aesthetic transformative experiences supported by new technologies, such as virtual reality, and how these technologies can foster creativity and engage a subject in an experience that can have relevant emotional and cognitive consequences for the human being.

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Elisa Pancini

Elisa Pancini is a Ph.D. candidate in Personal and Educational Sciences at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Milan as part of the National Operational Program "Research and Innovation." At the same University, she received her Master's Degree in Psychology for Well-Being: Empowerment, Rehabilitation and Positive Technology in 2021 with a thesis entitled "e-Savoring and Life Satisfaction: analysis of age differences and the role of future time perspective." She received his Master's degree in Sport Psychology in 2022 and currently works with the Borgotrebbia Tennis Club in Piacenza to optimize athletes' performance. Her research interests focus on promoting subjective and psychological well-being in different populations (healthy, clinical and subclinical) belonging to different age groups through Positive Technologies (Virtual Reality) and Positive Psychology devices. Elisa's main line of research concerns the development of a transformative relaxation and empowerment protocol through Virtual Reality and savoring aimed at clinical populations (respiratory diseases, Long Covid) in collaboration with BECOME-HUB and the Inrca Bronchopneumopathy Center of Casatenovo.

Flavia Cristofolini

Flavia Cristofolini is an adjunct professor in the Faculty of Psychology at the Catholic University of Brescia and an instructor for future teachers in the General Psychology course at the Faculty of Humanities at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Milan. She coordinates the Erasmus+ KA220 2022-2025 project for the creation of a digital app for the promotion of well-being and positive mental health in young people. Following her first degree in Foreign Languages and Literature from Brescia's Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, she has been a tenured teacher at Brescia high schools for 35 years, gaining further experience in promoting school wellness as a Trainer of Socio-Affective Education (Two-Year Course) of teachers.

She received her degree in Psychology of Clinical Interventions in Social Contexts from the Catholic University of Brescia, and was a student of the subject of Cognitive Empowerment; she then specialized in third-generation Cognitive-Behavioral Psychotherapy. She is involved in the application of Positive Psychology to teaching, learning, and school wellbeing and to new technologies (digital apps for psychological outreach and wellness). Her main research interests are in: transformative experience in learning and teaching; promotion of well-being and emotional self-regulation through Positive Psychology and third-wave cognitive-behavioral approaches (ACT, CFT) in non-clinical settings; design and implementation of interventions to promote well-being through the use of new technologies (Positive Technology).

Maurizio Mauri

Maurizio Mauri is adjunct professor of Cognitive Psychology applied to Ergonomics and User Experience, within the Master of Science course in "Psychology of well-being: Empowerment, Rehabilitation and Positive Technology," at the Faculty of Psychology of the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart of Milan. He is also coordinator of the PSICOM research unit in the "Search & Rescue" project, funded by the European Commission. He is contract lecturer at the International Master in User Experience Psychology. Maurizio has collaborated in several national and international projects in Communication and Consumer Psychology and he is author of several scientific publications on the topic. His research interests are focused on UX and the ergonomics of phygital environments.

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