معرفی
Dr. Nadia Dominici is an Associate Professor at the Department of Human Movement Sciences in the Faculty of Behavioural and Movement Sciences at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. She has additional affiliations with IBBA and AMS - Rehabilitation & Development. Her research focuses on neural control mechanisms of human and animal locomotion, motor development, and neurorehabilitation. She holds a Ph.D. in Neuroscience from the University of Rome 'Tor Vergata' (2006) and a Physics degree from the University of Rome 'La Sapienza' (2001). Dominici has received prestigious grants including the ERC Starting Grant (2016), NWO Aspasia Grant (2015), and NWO Vidi Grant (2015). She was awarded the Suzanne Klein-Vogelbach Prize (2013) and the IgNobel Prize in Physics (2013) for her work on lunar running feasibility. She also serves as an Associate Editor for Frontiers in Human Neuroscience since 2014.
Her research interests encompass advanced statistical analysis of motor patterns, neural control of human locomotion, motor development in children and adults, proprioceptive control mechanisms, gravitational physiology, and experimental neurorehabilitation in animal models. She investigates biomechanical adaptations during walking and running, particularly in populations with cerebral palsy, spinal cord injury, and aging. Dominici's work bridges neuroscience, biomechanics, and robotics to understand how neural systems coordinate complex movements and adapt to environmental challenges. She has pioneered markerless gait analysis techniques and explored the neural origins of locomotor primitives in toddlers and adults.
Her research projects include the ERC-funded Learn2Walk (2017–2022), which examines neural-spinal interactions in toddler gait development, and the NWO-backed FirSteps (2015–2021), investigating walking emergence in children. She also leads the Transformative Appropriation for a Meaningful Understanding of Cultural Heritage project (2024–2027). Dominici's work contributes to UN Sustainable Development Goals related to good health and well-being through innovations in neurorehabilitation and motor control understanding.
