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PEOPLE > Giovanna Varni

e-mail: giovanna@infomus.org

  • Languages:
    • italian - native speaker,
    • english - good,
    • french - basic

    • Education

  • April 2009: Ph.D. in Electronic, Computer and Telecommunication Engineering at “Università degli Studi di Genova”. Thesis: “Multimodal Nonverbal Interaction based on Sound and Music-towards Enactive and Social Interfaces”. Supervisor: Prof. Antonio Camurri.
  • February 2006: Italian Certificate of Professional Engineer.
  • September 2005: “Laurea” degree in Biomedical Engineering at “Università degli Studi di Genova”. Thesis: “Experiments on auditory-feedback to enhance performance of subjects in balance tasks”. Score: 110/110 summa cum laude, dignity of press.
  • July 1998: High School degree, score: 60/60.

    • Academic Experience

  • March 2014 - now: Post doc activity at InfoMus Lab Dipartimento di Informatica, Bioingegneria, Robotica e Ingengeria dei Sistemi (DIBRIS), Università degli Studi di Genova.
  • March 2012 - February 2014: Post doc activity at InfoMus Lab Dipartimento di Informatica, Bioingegneria, Robotica e Ingengeria dei Sistemi (DIBRIS), “Università degli studi di Genova”. Topic: “Analysis of expressive gesture and social interaction in reflexive interactive systems for improving the learning of the music in childhood”.The research was conducted in the framework of the FP7 EU-ICT STREP MIROR Project. Scientifc coordinator: Dr. Gualtiero Volpe.
  • March 2011 - February 2012: Post doc activity at InfoMus Lab-Dipartimento di Informatica, Sistemistica e Telematica (DIST), “Università degli studi di Genova”. Topic: “Social interaction and synchronisation in music performance”. The research was conducted in the framework of the FP7 EU-ICT FET SIEMPRE Project. Scientifc coordinator: Prof. Antonio Camurri.
  • March 2009 - February 2011: Post doc activity at InfoMus Lab-Dipartimento di Informatica, Sistemistica e Telematica (DIST), “Università degli studi di Genova” Topic: “Analysis techniques of synchronisation and leadership for the design and the deveolpment of human-computer interfaces for social active listening of music”. The research was conducted in the framework of the FP7 EU-ICT STREP SAME Project. Scientifc coordinator: Prof. Antonio Camurri.

    • Participation in European research projects:

  • EU-FP7-ICT STREP MIROR (2010-2013)
  • EU-FP7-ICT STREP I-SEARCH (2010-2012);
  • EU-FP7-ICT FET SIEMPRE (2010-2013);
  • EU-FP7-ICT STREP SAME (2008-2010);
  • EU-FP6-IST Network of Excellence ENACTIVE (2004-2007);

    • International scientific awards:

  • “Excellent Presentation Award”- International Conference on KANSEI Engineering and Emotion Research (KEER2010)
  • “Outstanding Leadership Award” - IEEE Conference on Social Computing 2009 (SocialCom09), IEEE CS;

    • Reviewing activities:

    Journals

  • Journal of Multimodal Interfaces, Springer Verlag;
  • IEEE Transaction on Affective Computing;
  • ACM Transactions on Interactive Intelligent Systems;
  • Behavior Research Methods, Springer;
  • IEEE Transactions on Human-Machine Systems;
  • IEEE Transactions on Multimedia Systems;
  • Interaction Desgin and Architecture(s)

    • Conferences

  • 16th International Conference on Multimodal Interaction (ICMI 2014)
  • 10th International Symposium on Computer Music Multidisciplinary Research;
  • 2013 ASE/IEEE International Conference on Social Computing (SocialCom 2013);
  • 5th International Conference on Games and Virtual Worlds for Serious Applications (VS-Games 2013);
  • 13th International Conference on Intelligent Virtual Agents (IVA 2013);
  • Affective computing and Intelligent Interaction 2013 (ACII 2013);
  • 2012 International Conference on Sound and Music Computing (SMC 2012);
  • 13th International Conference on Multimodal Interaction (ICMI 2011);
  • 2010 International Conference on Sound and Music Computing (SMC 2010);
  • 8th International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression (NIME08);

    • Co-organised international events:

  • Second International Workshop on Social Behavior in Music 2011 (SBM2011) in the framework of the International Conference on Intelligent Technologies for Interactive Entertainment (Intetain 2011).
  • 5th International Summer Workshop on Multimodal Interfaces-Enterface 2009 (Genova, July 13th - August 7th, 2009);
  • First International Workshop on Social Behavior in Music 2009 (SBM2009) in the framework of the IEEE International Conference on Social Computing (SocialCom-09), IEEE CS (Vancouver, B.C., Canada);
  • 3rd EU HUMAINE Summer School (Genova, September 22th - 28th , 2006);

    • International Program/Scientific Commitee Service:

  • Affective Interaction in Natural Environments (AFFINE13) (http://www.image.ntua.gr/affine/)
  • EyesWeb week 2010, international school for users and developers of the EyesWeb platform (Genova, February 8th - 12th, 2010).
  • EyesWeb week 2008, international school for users and developers of the EyesWeb platform (Genova, January 11th - 15th ;
  • EyesWeb week 2006, international school for users and developers of the EyesWeb platform (Genova, February 6th - 11th , 2006);

    • Teaching

  • November-December 2013: C++ class (32h) as assistant at the course “INFORMATICA PER L'INGEGNERIA INDUSTRIALE (Foundations of Computer Engineering for Mechanical Enginnering curriculum)”, “Università degli Studi di Genova”.
  • September 2013: class of C language (63h) for the “Ministero della Difesa”, at Telecommunication School “Caserma G. Leone” (Chiavari, Genova).
  • November-December 2012: C++ class (32h) as assistant at the course “INFORMATICA PER L'INGEGNERIA INDUSTRIALE (Foundations of Computer Engineering for Mechanical Enginnering curriculum)”, “Università degli Studi di Genova”.
  • October 2012: class of C language (60h) for the “Ministero della Difesa”, at Telecommunication School “Caserma G. Leone” (Chiavari, Genova).
  • November-December 2011: C++ e Matlab classes (18h) as professor at the course “INFORMATICA PER L'INGEGNERIA INDUSTRIALE (Foundations of Computer Engineering for Mechanical Enginnering curriculum)”, “Università degli Studi di Genova”.
  • June 2011: class of C language (44h) for the “Ministero della Difesa”, at Telecommunication School “Caserma G. Leone” (Chiavari, Genova).
  • November-December 2010: C++ and Matlab classes (28h) as assistant at the course “INFORMATICA PER L'INGEGNERIA INDUSTRIALE (Foundations of Computer Engineering for Mechanical Enginnering curriculum)”, “Università degli Studi di Genova”.
  • June 2010: class of C language (28h) for the “Ministero della Difesa”, at Telecommunication School “Caserma G. Leone” (Chiavari, Genova).
  • March-May 2010: C++ and Matlab classes (20h) as assistant at “INFORMATICA PER L'INGEGNERIA INDUSTRIALE (Foundations of Computer Engineering for Mechanical Enginnering curriculum)”, “Università degli Studi di Genova”.
  • June 2009: class of C language (16h) for the “Ministero della Difesa”, at Telecommunication School “Caserma G. Leone” (Chiavari, Genova).

    • Publications

    International peer-reviewed journals

  • G. Varni, G. Dubus, S. Oksanen, G. Volpe, M. Fabiani, R. Bresin, J. Kleimola, V. Välimäki, A. Camurri, “Interactive Sonification of Synchronisation of Motoric Behavior in Social Active Music Listening of Music with Mobile Devices”, Journal on Multimodal User Interfaces, 5 (3-4), 157-173, Springer-Verlag, 2012.
  • G. Varni, G. Volpe, A. Camurri, “A System for Real-Time Multimodal Analysis of Nonverbal Affective Social Interaction”, Multimedia, IEEE Transactions on, 16 (3), 576-590, IEEE, 2010.
  • G. Varni, M. Mancini, G. Volpe, A. Camurri, “A system for mobile active music listening based on social interaction and embodiment”, Mobile Network and Applications (MONET), 16 (3), 375-384, Springer-Verlag New York, 2011.
  • M. Mancini, G. Varni, J. Kleimola, A. Camurri, “Human movement expressivity for mobile active music listening”, Journal on Multimodal User Interfaces, 4 (1), 27-35, Springer-Verlag, 2010.
  • D. Tardieu, X. Siebert, B. Mazzarino, R. Chessini, J. Dubois, S. Dupont, G. Varni, A. Visentin , “Browsing a dance video collection: dance analysis and interface design”, Journal on Multimodal User Interfaces, 4 (1), 37-46, Springer-Verlag, 2010.
  • A. Camurri, G. Castellano, D. Glowinski, B. Mazzarino, G. Varni, G. Volpe, “Il gesto espressivo nell’interazione uomo-macchina”. In C. Pelachaud, B. N. De Carolis, F. de Rosis, editors, La Ricerca sui Sistemi Intelligenti in Italia, In Cognito, 4 (1-2), 2009.
  • S. Argyropoulos, K. Moustakas, A. Karpov, O. Aran, D. Tzovaras, T. Tsakiris, G. Varni, B. Kwon “Multimodal user interface for the communication of the disabled”. Journal of Multimodal User Interfaces 2 (2), 105–116, Springer-Verlag, 2008.

    • International Conference

  • M. Mancini, G. Varni, R. Niewiadomski, G. Volpe, A. Camurri, “How is your laugh today?”, in CHI'14 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 1855-1860, ACM, 2014.
  • M. Mancini, J. Hofmann, T. Platt, G. Volpe, G. Varni, D. Glowinsky, W. Ruch, A. Camurri, “Towards automated full body detection of laughter driven by human expert annotation”, in Proceedings of International Conference on Affective Computing & Intelligent Interaction (ACII 2013), 757-762, IEEE, 2013.
  • G. Varni, G. Volpe, R. Sagoleo, M. Mancini, G. Lepri, “Interactive reflexive and embodied exploration of sound qualities with BeSound”, in Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Interaction Design and Children (IDC 2013), 531-534, ACM, 2013.
  • S. Piana, M. Mancini, A. Camurri, G. Varni, G. Volpe, “Automated analysis of non-verbal expressive gesture”, in Human Aspects in Ambient Intelligence, 41-54, Atlantis Press, 2013.
  • R. Niewiadomski, M. Mancini, T. Baur, G. Varni, H. Griffin, Min SH Aung, “MMLI: Multimodal multiperson corpus of laughter in interaction”, in Human Behavior Understanding, 184-195, Springer International Publishing, 2013.
  • M. Mancini, G. Varni, D. Glowinski, and G. Volpe, “Computing and Evaluating the Body Laugther Index”, in Proceeding of the 3th Interanational Workshop on Human Beaviour Understanding 2012 (HBU 2012), 90-98, Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 2012.
  • G. Volpe, G. Varni, B. Mazzarino, and A. R. Addessi, “BeSound: Embodied Reflexion for Music Education in Childhood”, in Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Interaction Design and Children (IDC 2012), 172-175, ACM, 2012.
  • G. Varni, G. Volpe, M. Mancini, “Embodied Cooperation using mobile devices: presenting and evaluating the Sync4All application”, in Proceedings of the International Working Conference Advanced Visual Interfaces (AVI 2012), 312-319, ACM, 2012.
  • G. Varni, G. Volpe, G. Mazzarino, “Towards a Social Retrieval of Music Content”, in Proceedings of the 2011 IEEE International Conference on Social Computing SocialCom, 1466-1473, IEEE, 2011.
  • G. Volpe, G. Varni, B. Mazzarino, S. Pisano, A. Camurri, “Analysis of Social Interaction in Music Performance with Score-Independent Audio Features”, in Proceedings of 8th Sound and Music Computing Conference (SMC2011).
  • A. Camurri, G. Varni, G. Volpe, “Computational Model of Entrainment within Small Groups of People: Toward Novel Approaches to KANSEI information Processing”, in Proceedings of International Conference on Kansei Engineering and Emotion Research 2010 (KEER2010), 2010. Excellent Presentation Award.
  • M. Mancini, G. Varni, G. Volpe, A. Camurri, “Active Music Experience Using Mobile Phones”, in Proceedings of International Conference on Kansei Engineering and Emotion Research 2010 (KEER2010), 2010.
  • A. Camurri, G. Volpe, D. Glowinski, M. Mancini, B. Mazzarino, G. Varni, "Modeling expressive individual and collective behavior", in Proceedings of the Conference for the Italian Association for Artificial Intelligence, 2009.
  • G. Varni, M. Mancini, G. Volpe, A. Camurri, "Sync'n'Move: social interaction based on music and gesture", in Proceedings of the 1st Intl. ICST Conference on User Centric Media (UCMedia 2009), LNICST vol. 40, 31-38, Springer Berlin Heidelberg , 2010. Best Paper Candidate.
  • G. Varni, A. Camurri, P. Coletta, G. Volpe, "Toward Real-time Automated Measure of Empathy and Dominance", in Proceedings of the 2009 IEEE International Conference on Social Computing SocialCom, 4, 843-848, IEEE, 2009.
  • A. Camurri, G. Varni, G. Volpe, “Toward analysis of expressive gesture in groups of users: computational models of expressive social interaction”, in S. Kopp and I. Wachsmuth (Eds.), Gesture in Embodied Communication and Human-Computer Interaction, Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence (LNAI), 5934, 122-133, Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 2010.
  • J. Kleimola, M. Mancini, G. Varni, A. Camurri, C. Andreotti, L. Zhao, “A Sensor Pairing and Fusion System for a Multi-user Environment,” in Proceedings of the 5th International Summer Workshop on Multimodal Interfaces (eNTERFACE/09), 2009.
  • D. Tardieu, R. Chessini, J. Dubois, S. Dupont, S. Hidot, B. Mazzarino, A. Moinet, X. Sibert, G. Varni, A. Visentin. “Video Navigation Tool: Application to browsing a database of dancers' performances”, in Proceedings of the 5th International Summer Workshop on Multimodal Interfaces (eNTERFACE/09), 2009.
  • A. Camurri, G. Varni, G. Volpe, “Measuring Emotional Entrainment in Small Groups of Musicians”, in Proceedings of International Conference on Affective Computing & Intelligent Interaction (ACII 2009), 1-4, IEEE, 2009.
  • G. Varni, A. Camurri, P. Coletta, G. Volpe, “Emotional entrainment in music performance”, in Proceedings of 8th International Conference on Automatic Face and Gesture Recognition, IEEE FG2008, 1-5, IEEE, 2008.
  • A. Camurri, P. Coletta, G. Varni, S. Ghisio, “Developing multimodal interactive systems with EyesWeb XMI”, in Proceedings of the 2007 Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression (NIME07), 305-308, ACM, 2007.
  • A. Camurri, P. Coletta, M. Demurtas, M. Peri, A. Ricci, R. Sagoleo, M. Simonetti, G. Varni, G. Volpe G.,“An Open Platform for Multimodal Data Streams Processing”, in Proceedings of 4th Sound and Music Computing Conference (SCMC'07), 354-358, 2007.
  • G. Varni, T. Stoffregen, A. Camurri, B. Mazzarino, G. Volpe, “Audio patterns as a source of information for the perception and control of orientation”, in Proceedings of Virtual Rehabilitation 2007,109-113, IEEE, 2007.
  • A. Camurri, G. Castellano, P. Coletta, A. Massari, B. Mazzarino, G. Varni, G. Volpe, “Multimodal interfaces for expressive interaction”, in Proceedings of HCItaly 2005, Simposio Italiano su Human Computer Interaction, 18-22, 2005.