Elia Formisano (E.)
Elia Formisano received his MSc degree in Electronic Engineering in 1996 from the University of Naples (Italy) and earned his PhD in Bioengineering from the Italian national program in 2000. As a visiting research fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research in Frankfurt/Main (1998-1999), he was supported by an outgoing grant. In January 2000, he was appointed Assistant Professor at Maastricht University (Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience) where he currently holds the position of Professor of Neural Signal Analysis (since 2011). Form 2008 to 2013, he was Head of the Department of Cognitive Neuroscience.
He is the co-founder and scientific director of the Maastricht Brain Imaging Center (MBIC) and serves as Principal Investigator (PI) in the Auditory Perception and Cognition research section. He also founded the AuditoRy Cognition in Humans and MachInEs (ARCHIE) research initiative. Additionally, he is founding member and research program leader at the Maastricht Center for Systems Biology (MaCSBio) and serves as PI at the Brightlands Institute for Smart Society (BISS). He is a Fellow of the Netherlands Academy of Engineering (NAE)
Elia's research is supported by several national (e.g. NWO VIDI, VICI, Gravitation, Open Competition) and international (ERC Synergy) funding sources. His primary research goal is uncovering the neural computational basis of human auditory perception and cognition. He is a pioneer in utilizing ultra-high magnetic field functional MRI (7 Tesla and more) and applying machine learning/AI in neuroscience studies of audition. His work has been published in prestigious journals, such as Science, Nature Neuroscience, Nature Reviews Neuroscience, Neuron, Nature Communications, Nature Human Behaviour, PNAS, Current Biology.
With more than 25 years of teaching experience, Elia has developed courses and curricula at bachelor, master and graduate school levels, focusing on cognitive neuroscience, neuroimaging and biomedical engineering (biomedical signal and image analysis).