Alberto Redaelli, PhD, Full Professor

Full Professor in the Deparment of Electronics, Information and Bioengineering (DEIB) at Politecnico di Milano, and head of the Bioengineering REsearch Area since 2020. He co-founded and coordinates the Biomechanics Research Group at DEIB. He is the authored of more than 240 full manuscripts published on international peer-reviewed scientific journals in the fields of biomechanics, microfluidics, and nano-biomechanics, with an h-index of 48 and more than 9000 citations according to Scopus. He has coordinated 7 European projects, 9 national projects funded by the Italian Government, and 6 projects funded by Cariplo Foundation. Recently, he has been coordinating a POS project on data analysis, a PNC project on advanced diagnostic tools, and a PNRR-funded project. Moreover, he is the co.founder of two spin-off companies stemmed from Politecnico di Milano: Artiness, which developes Mixed Reality applications for cardiac surgery, and BiomimX, which develops microfluidic platforms for cell culturing and drug screening.

Emiliano Votta, PhD, Associate Professor

Emiliano Votta is an expert in finite element modelling and cardiovascular biomechanics. He coordinates the activities of the Computational Biomechanics Laboratory at DEIB and of the 3D and Computer Simulation Laboratory at IRCCS Policlinico San Donato, a center of excellence in cardiology, interventional cardiology, and cardiac surgery. He is currently the coordinator of the EU-funded project ARTERY, the local PI of the MERLIN project funded by the Italian Ministry of Education, Universities and Research, and the local co-PI of the CAL.HUB.RIA. project funded by the Italian Ministry of Health. His research activity leverages numerical modeling, image analysis, artificial intelligence techniques and mixed reality to develop pre- and intra-procedural support tools for clinicians. It has produced around 190 publications, including 82 full papers accepted or published in international peer-reviewed scientific journals. He is among the co-founders of Artiness srl, a spin-off company stemmed from Politecnico di Milano and devoted to the development of mixed reality solutions for interventional cardiology. He is also one of the co-inventors of a filed Italian patent.

Francesco Sturla, PhD, Research Fellow at IRCCS Policlinico San Donato

Francesco Sturla was born in 1986. He has a Bachelor Degree in Biomedical Engineering from the Politecnico di Milano with a thesis about a deformable model for the annulus aortic dynamics. In 2011 he received his Master’s degree in Biomedical Engineering from Politecnico di Milano with a thesis on fluid-structure interaction (FSI) mechanics in the the aortic root, focusing on the computational modeling of the bicuspid aortic valve. He received the PhD in Cardiovascular Sciences at Università degli Studi di Verona with a study focusing on the numerical analysis of the mitral valve and its pathologies, combining magnetic resonance imaging with finite element modeling. He currently works at the Computational Biomechanics Laboratory at Politecnico di Milano.

Alessandra Riva, MSc, Research Fellow at IRCCS Policlinico San Donato

Alessandra Riva was born in 1994. She received her Bachelor Degree in Biomedical Engineering from Politecnico di Milano in September 2016 with a thesis concerning the quantitative analysis of mitral valve prolapse from cardiac magnetic resonance data. In April 2019 she received her Master Degree in Biomedical Engineering from Politecnico di Milano. Her master thesis was developed in collaboration with the Department of Chemical Engineering of Imperial College London and focused on the comparison between standard and dual V_enc 4D flow for aortic hemodynamics evaluation in patients affected by thoracic aortic aneurysm. She is currently working as a research engineer at the 3D Computational Simulation Lab at IRCCS Policlinico San Donato. Her research activity now focuses on the analysis of PC-MRI and 4D flow data for the evaluation of healthy and pathologic left ventricles.

Guido Nannini, MSc, PhD Candidate

Guido Nannini was born in 1995. He obtained his Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineer at Università degli Studi di Firenze in 2017, with a thesis focused on the measurement of the propagation velocity of action potential in mycardial tissue.In 2020 he accomplished his Master’s degree in biomedical engineer at Politecnico di Milano. His master thesis aimed to the assesment of a patient haemodynamics prior and after valve-sparing surgery, through the development of an FSI (fluid-structure interaction) numerical model. Part of the thesis was carried out at Weill Cornell College in New York City, NY, under the supervision of Professor A. Redaelli and Doctor J.W. Weinsaft. He is currently working as a research fellow at Politecnico di Milano, focusing his work on the development of an “anti-COVID-19” medical device for dentistry applications.

Riccardo Munafò, MSc, PhD Candidate

Riccardo Munafò was born in 1996. He obtained his Bachelor Degree in Biomedical Engineering at Politecnico di Milano in September 2018 with a thesis concerning the quantitative analysis of the mechanical properties of selected silicone rubbers in order to find a suitable combination between material and geometry to create accurate 3D replicas of blood vessels by rapid prototyping. In April 2021, he received his Master Degree in Biomedical Engineering from Politecnico di Milano. His master thesis was developed in collaboration with the University Hospital of LMU Munich and focused on a comparison among 4D flow guided-CFD, FSI and 3D data assimilation in the assessment of blood flow in cerebral aneurysms. Currently enrolled as a PhD researcher at the Laboratory of Computational Biomechanics (CB Lab), his research activity now focuses on the development and application of AI-based methods for real-time segmentation of cardiac imaging and intracardiac catheter tracking. His research activity will contribute to developing the ARTERY EU-funded project.

Veronica Ruozzi, MSc, PhD Candidate

Veronica Ruozzi was born in 1997 in Reggio Emilia. She got her master’s degree in biomedical engineering at Politecnico di Milano in 2022. She developed her master thesis within the ARTERY Project and in particular her work was focused on the real time simulation of catheter-vessel interaction during percutaneous procedures. Currently she is a PhD candidate in bioengineering at Politecnico di Milano. She currently works on the development of Augmented Reality applications and hybrid simulators for training in the field of interventional surgery.

Alessandro Albanesi, MSc, PhD Candidate

Alessandro Albanesi was born in 1998 in Ascoli Piceno. He obtained his master’s degree in Biomedical Engineering from Politecnico di Milano in 2023. In 2021, he was awarded the HealthTech fellowship at the University of Strasbourg, where he completed a one-year master’s program in Computer Vision and Computer-Aided Surgery. His master’s thesis, developed at the Institute of Image-Guided Surgery of Strasbourg (IHU), focused on the development of mixed-reality solutions for endoscopic ultrasound and liver ablation. He is currently a PhD student in Bioengineering at Politecnico di Milano, with a research focus on mixed-reality applications for neurosurgical procedures.

Davide Astori, MSc, PhD Candidate

Davide Astori was born in 1998. In April 2023, he received his Master’s in Biomedical Engineering from Politecnico di Milano. In his master’s thesis, he developed finite element simulations to replicate patient-specific PPVI procedures to investigate potential peri- and post-procedural risks. Currently, he is enrolled as a PhD researcher at the Computer Modeling Lab (CM-Lab) at Politecnico di Milano. His research aims to develop tools based on CT imaging to improve the pre-procedural planning of transcatheter procedures and support the decision-making process for minimally invasive heart repair.

Davide Tondi, MSc, PhD Candidate

Davide Tondi was born in 1998. In May 2023, he received his Master’s Degree in Biomedical Engineering from Politecnico di Milano. His master’s thesis explored the biomechanics of mitral valve prolapse using a workflow integrating CMR imaging and finite element simulations. This research was conducted in collaboration with the IRCCS Policlinico San Donato and the Leipzig Heart Center in Leipzig. Currently enrolled as a PhD researcher at the Computer Modeling Lab (CM-Lab) at Politecnico di Milano, his research activity aims to develop a suite of tools, based on non-invasive RT3DE, able to improve the clinical assessment of valve pathologies, focusing on valvular regurgitation, and supporting the decision-making process for atrioventricular valves repair.

Luca Mariani, MSc, PhD Candidate

Luca Mariani was born in 1998. He obtained his master’s degree in Biomedical Engineering at Politecnico di Milano in 2023. He worked as Research Fellow at Centro Cardiologico Monzino (CONCERTO project) to develop an automatic tool for the evaluation of Coronary Artery diseases through CFD simulations and FFR-CT index. Currently he is a PhD student in Bioengineering at CM-Lab at Politecnico di Milano, working on a cutting-edge AI framework for precise evaluation of atherosclerosis in high-risk patients with suspected or diagnosed CAD (AI-Corps Project).

Ione Ianniruberto, MSc, PhD Candidate

Ione Ianniruberto was born in 1999. In April 2024, she received her Master’s Degree in Biomedical Engineering from Politecnico di Milano. In her master thesis she investigates the role of a new risk factor for type A Aortic dissection in collaboration with the Monaldi Hospital of Naples. Currently enrolled as a PhD researcher at the Computer Modeling Lab (CM-Lab) at Politecnico di Milano, her research activity in collaboration with the Cornell University in New York, aims at investigating the impact of ascending aorta graft implantation on descending aorta biomechanics. 

Davide Milesi, MSc, Research Fellow

Davide Milesi was born in 1998. In December 2023, he received his Master’s degree in Biomedical Engineering from Politecnico di Milano with a thesis on computer vision, developed at the STORM Lab of University of Leeds (UK). During his thesis work, which was awarded with a “Thesis abroad” scholarship, he developed a depth estimation method for colonoscopy, based on a deep learning approach. He currently works as Research Fellow at the Computer Modeling Lab (CM-Lab) at Politecnico di Milano, his research activity aims to develop artificial intelligence solutions to improve clinical procedures like brain tumor craniotomy, deep brain stimulation and surgery for craniosynostosis.