Gianluca De Novi, Ph.D.

Gianluca De Novi received his master's degree in electronics engineering and his PhD in robotics and control systems from University of Bologna (Italy), while working at the Laboratory of Automation and Robotics. After spending one year as a visiting researcher at the bio-robotics laboratory of Harvard's School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, he completed his postdoctoral fellowship in medical simulation at the Department of Imaging at the Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston. In 2011 he became a visiting professor at the University Campus Bio-medico of Rome and instructor at the Harvard Medical School in 2013. During the last few years he has also been dedicating part of his academic life to teaching and mentoring undergraduate and graduate students. During his career De Novi has also acted as scientific consultant to many leading corporations and research institutions.

De Novi's interest in computer-based surgery simulation started with exploration of cutting edge technologies for graphic rendering and developing a complete virtual reality framework optimized for surgery simulation (2004 - 2013). Since 2007, he has been concentrating his research interests on physical simulation of soft tissues, creating new models and approaches optimized for haptic rendering (2007-2010). During his postdoctoral fellowship he focused his interests on other crucial aspects of surgery simulation, such as real-time gesture analysis and task recognition and augmented reality.