Academic Staff

Lucio Tommaso De Paolis is an Associate Professor of Information Processing Systems at the Department of Innovation Engineering of the University of Salento (Italy). His research interest concerns the study of the design and development of applications of Virtual and Augmented Reality and Human-Computer Interaction in medicine and surgery, cultural heritage and education.

De Paolis is the Director of the Augmented and Virtual Reality Laboratory (AVR Lab) at the Department of Engineering for Innovation of the University of Salento and the founder of Augmented and Virtual Reality for Medicine srl, a Spin-off company of the University of Salento, and of XRtechnology srl, an Innovative Startup specialized in the development of applications of eXtended Reality (XR) technology in medicine, cultural heritage, and marketing.

De Paolis teaches “Applications of Virtual and Augmented Reality” at the University of Salento and is the organizer of the annual International Conference on eXtended Reality (www.xrsalento.it). He has been the coordinator of some Italian and international projects focused on the application of Virtual and Augmented Reality in medicine, cultural heritage, and education.

He has been a Visiting Professor in 2020 at the Riga Technical University (Latvia), in 2014 at the Tallinn University of Technology, in 2012 at the Vytautas Magnus University of Kaunas (Lithuania) and in 2011 at the University of Tallinn (Estonia). From December 2021 De Paolis is again Visiting Professor at the Vytautas Magnus University of Kaunas (Lithuania).

He has been Visiting Researcher in 2019 at the Faculty of Computer and Information Science, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia in 2007 and 2010 at the Centro de Ciencias Aplicadas y Desarrollo Tecnológico (CCADET) of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM), Mexico City (Messico) and in 2007 and 2009 at the Computer Graphics Laboratory of the Sabanci University of Istanbul (Turkey).

Ilenia Paladini graduated in Computer Science at the University of Bari in 1997.
In 2004 she received the PhD Degree in "Materials and Innovative Technologies" from the ISUFI (Istituto Superiore Universitario per la Formazione Interdisciplinare) of Lecce. Her research intrests include multimedia for cultural heritage and education, design of user interfaces.

Giovanni D’Errico holds a Ph.D. with honors in Metrology from Politecnico di Torino (2025) and a cum laude degree in Computer Engineering from the University of Salento. He is currently a research fellow at AVRLab, where he investigates biosignal-based adaptivity in eXtended Reality (XR) systems. His research integrates metrology, physiological computing, and immersive technologies to study, assess, and regulate mental states in real time. His interests include the metrological validation of XR systems, bioadaptive interfaces, and immersive applications in clinical, educational, and cognitive domains. In previous research, he explored virtual and augmented reality applications and gamification in the context of smart cities, cultural heritage smart fruition, and neurocognitive rehabilitation.

Carola Gatto is Assistant Professor (RTD-A) in Classical Archaeology at the Department of Cultural Heritage, University of Salento, and a researcher at the Augmented and Virtual Reality Laboratory (AVR Lab). She holds a Ph.D. in Cultural Heritage Sciences from the University of Salento. Her research interests focus on archaeological data representation, digital curation in museums, augmented and virtual reality for cultural heritage, and the relationship between museums and well-being. She is the author of several scientific publications. She is a member of the Italian ICOM Working Group “Multimedia and Emerging Technologies” and currently coordinates the Young Researchers Group at the Digital Humanities Centre of the University of Salento.