Manfredo Atzori

Manfredo Atzori serves as Associate Professor at the Department of Neuroscience, University of Padova, and has been a research scientist at the Institute of Information Systems of the University of Applied Sciences Western Switzerland (HES-SO Valais) since 2011.

Education

• M.Sc. in Physics, University of Padova, 2006
• Ph.D. in Bioengineering, University of Padova, 2009

Research Focus

Dr. Atzori pioneers machine learning applications for biomedical multimodal data analysis. His work spans convolutional neural networks for surface electromyography (a field he helped establish globally in 2015), computer-aided cancer diagnosis in biopsies, and 3D-printed robotic prosthetic hands controlled via machine learning. He leads the Horizon 2020 ExaMode project for weakly-supervised knowledge discovery in digital pathology, integrating text and image analysis for medical diagnostics.

Research Leadership

As Scientific Coordinator of the Horizon 2020 ExaMode project (2019-present), he manages a seven-partner consortium advancing multimodal medical data analysis. He previously coordinated the Hasler Foundation's ProHand project for 3D-printed prosthetics and led the MeganePro Project (2016-2019), which investigated eye-hand coordination in robotic prostheses and neurocognitive effects of amputations using multimodal datasets. Since 2011, he has curated the Ninapro database—a globally utilized resource with thousands of users for robotic hand prosthesis research.

Professional Recognition

With over 80 peer-reviewed publications exceeding 2,000 citations, Dr. Atzori frequently presents as an invited speaker at international conferences. He serves on the editorial board of Scientific Data (Nature Publishing Group), reflecting his standing in computational biomedical research.