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ABOUT ME

I am a Swiss-Afghan, born in Rome, I did my Ph.D. between the Polytechnique of Lausanne and Duke University (Durham, NC), and my postdoc in Brazil. I am fluent in French, Portuguese, Italian, English, and Farsi.

MY WORK

My goal is to understand how to improve the life of people with spinal cord injury. I consider the multi-facet aspect of the injury: physical, neurological, psychological. 

My research covers brain-machine interfaces, neuroprosthetics, and neurorehabilitation.  


In the last 5 years, I have been in charge of the integration of brain-machine interfaces in the neurorehabilitation protocol for patients diagnosed with chronic complete spinal cord injury.

Working with the patients on daily basis and seeing the neurological improvements has been one of the most rewarding experiences in my life. 

About me: FAQ

Science will disappoint you, until it doesn’t | TEDxLuzern

I was asked to comment on the current situation and what it means to be a scientist in 2020.
I did not feel comfortable explaining that 'science will save us', nor the anecdote about that day where 'I - suddenly - found the solution for X'; because we know it never happens that way...
I believe that curiosity and resilience are among the most fundamental aspects of the life of a scientist, and I tried to illustrate it. I wanted to communicate my passion for science and how it resonates during the bizarre/complicated period we are going through. Hope you like it :-)

About me: Video

AWARDS

About me: Experience
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Nov 2011

SOCIETY FOR NEUROSCIENCE

Poster selected as 'Hot topic' of the year at Society for Neuroscience, Washington, DC.  

Social interaction probed by reaching to face images: Rhesus monkeys consider a textured monkey avatar as a conspecific.

June 2014

EPFL DOCTORATE SPECIAL DISTINCTION

Ph.D. Dissertation obtained special jury mention, Lausanne 
Virtual reality-based brain-machine-interface for sensorimotor and social experiments with primates. EPFL doctorate special distinction.

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2019

TOP 100 SCIENTIFIC REPORTS ARTICLE

The article Non-invasive, Brain-controlled Functional Electrical Stimulation for Locomotion Rehabilitation in Individuals with Paraplegia placed as one of the top 100 downloaded papers (over 19'871 papers ) for Scientific Reports in 2019. 

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2016

TOP 100 SCIENTIFIC REPORTS ARTICLE

The article ‘Long-Term Training with a Brain-Machine Interface-Based Gait Protocol Induces Partial Neurological Recovery in Paraplegic Patients’ place as one of the top 100 read Scientific Reports articles in 2016 (over more than 20'000 published papers). 

Sep 2019

BCI AWARD - NOMINATED

Paper nominated for BCI award, Graz University
The Walk Again Neurorehabilitation Protocol: a BMI-based clinical application to induce partial neurological recovery in spinal cord injury patients 

In my scientific work, I like clarity

I am particularly concerned about well-executed scientific figures.
I spend, sometimes, an unreasonable amount of effort on them. 

About me: Quote
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