Role
Full Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience at the Interdepartmental Center for Mind/Brain Sciences (CIMeC) and the Faculty of Cognitive Sciences of the University of Trento.
Bio
She holds a degree in Experimental Psychology from the University of Padua and a PhD from the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience at University College London. She holds a European Diploma from the Max Planck Institute. After serving as a permanent researcher at INSERM in France in Stanislas Dehaene's laboratory and a Fellow at Columbia University, she became a full professor of cognitive neuroscience at CIMeC of the University of Trento, where she directed the Master's program in Cognitive Sciences.
Internationally recognized for her research on numerical intelligence and neurocognitive development, she investigates the mechanisms of brain plasticity connected to mathematics learning both in typically developing subjects and in cases of developmental disorders such as dyscalculia .
Her recent discoveries demonstrate how semantic memory is organized according to principles analogous to navigation in physical space, formalizing the cognitive mapping model for conceptual representation. Author of over 60 high-impact publications (with over 15,000 citations), she is an ERC evaluator, sits on the scientific committees of the Paris Institute of the Infant Brain and the Fondation Fyssen, and is active in training and outreach on learning disabilities.