EDUCATION AND TRAINING

·         1993-1998 Undergraduate Scientific Studies in Science -  Diploma di Maturità Scientifica - Liceo Scientifico Stanislao Cannizzaro, Palermo.

·         April 2004: MD in Physics at “Università degli Studi di Catania” (mark 109/110). Thesis on Nuclear Physics concerning: “Phase transition to deconfined matter in collision between radioactive beams and in neutron stars”. Supervisors: Prof. Massimo Di Toro (Laboratori Nazionale del Sud, Catania) and Dr.ssa Fiorella Burgio (INFN, Catania).

·         January 2008: PhD in Physics at the University “La Sapienza” of Rome. PhD thesis in Magnetic Resonance Imaging with the title “Feasibility of the direct detection of Neuronal Currents by MRI”. Supervisors: Prof. Bruno Maraviglia and Dott. Gisela Hagberg.

PhD COURSES AND RESEARCH EXPERIENCE

-          Molecular Dynamics and Computer simulation in Biophysics

-          Computational Physics and MonteCarlo simulations

-          NMR and Brain Function Research: research activity.

GRANTS AND COLLABORATIONS

January 2007 – May 2007: Visiting Scholar at the “Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory”, Berkeley, Ca, USA, on the magnetic resonance laboratory of Professor Alexander Pines (UC Berkeley, Dept. of Chemistry and Material Science Division at LBNL) and of SQUID group headed by prof. John Clarke (UC Berkeley, Dept. of Physics)

December 2007-Today: Post-Doc Fellow at the Museo Storico della Fisica e Centro Studi e Ricerche “Enrico Fermi”, Complesso del Viminale, Roma

PUBLICATIONS

1.       A.M. Cassarà, G. Hagberg, M. Bianciardi, M. Migliore, B. Maraviglia. (2008). Realistic simulations of neuronal activity: a contribution to the debite on direct detection of neuronal currents by MRI. Neuroimage. 2008 Jan 1;39(1):87-106

2.       A.M. Cassarà, B. Maraviglia. Microscopic Investigation of the Resonant Mechanism for the Implementation of nc-MRI at Ultra-Low Field MRI. Neuroimage. 2008 Jul 15;41(4):1228-41

3.       G. Hagberg, M. Bianciardi, V. Brainovich, A.M. Cassarà, B. Maraviglia. The effect of physiological noise in phase fMRI: from BOLD effects to direct detection of neuronal currents. Magn Reson Imaging. 2008 Sep; 26(7):1026-40

POSTER AND CONTRIBUTIONS

·         International School on Magnetic Resonance and Brain Function, 4rd Course: “Magnetic Resonance combined with electrophysiology and with molecular and pharmaceutical action for the study of brain function”, Erice (Tp): 23-29 May 2006. Poster Presentation “Neuronal Activity Realistic Simulations: Contribution to the Debate on the Direct Detection of Neurocurrents by MRI”.

·         15^th Joint Annual Meeting ISMRM-ESMRMB (International Society of Magnetic Resonance in Medicine – European Society of Magnetic Resonance in Medicine and Biology), Berlin (Germany): 19-25 May 2007. Electronic presentation: “Realistic Simulations of Neuronal Activity: Contribution to the Debate on Direct Detection of Neuronal Currents by MRI”.

·         16^th Joint Annual Meeting ISMRM-ESMRMB (International Society of Magnetic Resonance in Medicine – European Society of Magnetic Resonance in Medicine and Biology), Toronto (Canada): 3-9 May 2008. Poster Presentation : “The effect of physiological noise on fMRI phase time series”

·         International School on Magnetic Resonance and Brain Function, 6th Course: “Brain Function Investigation by Magnetic Resonance, Electrophysiology and Pharmaceutical Probes, in combination”, Erice (Tp): 18-25 May 2008. Invited Speaker:

·         International Conference on Biomagnetism, BIOMAG2008, 16^th Course, Sapporo (Japan): 25-29 August 2008. Invited Speaker: “Feasibility of Neuronal Current MRI at low fields”

PARTECIPATION TO SCHOOLS

·         Tutorial “Understanding Molecular Simulation”, University of Amsterdam, supported by CECAM and Marie-Curie MolSim, grant, 23 October–04 November 2005

RESEARCH ACTIVITIES

• Prevision of Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) signals by means of realistic simulations of neuronal networks using reconstructed neuronal morphologies. Experience in prevision and characterization of biomagnetic signals (MEG signals) and of MRI signals (PhD Thesis).
• Design and testing of MRI sequences (PhD Thesis) by means of simulations.
• Design, testing and construction of new instrumentation for MRI (electromagnets, detectors, shielding structures, cooling systems for MRI devices) for compact structures and possible space applications.

COMPUTER SKILLS

• Solid experience in scientific programming in Fortran90 (Object Oriented Language) and MATLAB (5 years experience);
• Basic knowledge of COMSOL for advanced simulations (solution of mixed electromagnetic and thermal problems  for the design of electromagnets, magnetic shielding, cooling systems for MRI devices);
• Knowledge of Operating Systems: advanced Windows (98, XP,VISTA);  basic Unix

KNOWLEDGE OF LANGUAGES

• Italian: mother tongue;
• English: very good written, very good oral;
• French: good written, good oral;
• German: basic written, basic oral;