Full Professor of Internal Medicine at the University of Catania, he is the Founder of the University Center of Excellence for the acceleration of Harm Reduction (CoEHAR), where 40 researchers with different expertise are actively involved in international clinical research. He is one of the most recognized and prolific tobacco harm reduction advocate, and designed and conducted dozens of research studies, working with smoking cessation specialists, clinical psychologists, epidemiologists, biostatisticians, chemists, toxicologists, and biologists from all over the world.
Giovanni Li Volti is full professor of Biochemistry at the Department of Biomedical and Biotechnological Sciences of the University of Catania.
Soon after the graduation in Medicine and Surgery at the University of Catania in 2000, he attended the Department of Pharmacology at the New York Medical College, and in 2005 he obtained the title of PhD in Pediatric Sciences at the University of Catania.
In 2006, he was research fellow at the Department of Anatomy of the University of Brescia.
Prof. Li Volti has received numerous national and international awards for his research activity:
September 2002: Aventis Pharma New Investigator Award for U.S. Fellow
November 2002: Toscano-Scuderi Award (University of Catania, Italy)
August 2004: Young Investigator Travel Award at the European Society of Neurochemistry
September 2009: Travel award at the International Heme Oxygenase meeting, Miami (FL)
June 2010: Young Scientist Award FEBS meeting.
Graduated in Foreign Languages at the University of Catania, she completed her education with a Master in Project Management in the same University. She has been working at the Department of Clinical and Experimental Medicine since 2013, where she acquired a great experience in the management of all the administrative, financial and communication aspects of several national and international projects on THR science. She has also experience in scientific research, especially on e-cigarettes regulation aspects. She is the coordinator of the ISPM.
Coordinator of the Area for Innovation and Technology Transfer at the University of Catania, he is an expert of business development and project coordination activities. Graduated in Economis, and qualified as Chartered Accountant and Auditor, he hold several professional positions in private companies as General and Marketing Manager, and in public entities as consultant for territorial development and sustainability.
He has been also the Director of the Mediterranean Consortium for the Spin Off in High Technologies.
Governing Director of the University of Catania’s spin off ECLAT srl, he is also dentist and medical director of different clinics in Italy and Ireland. Experienced Governing Director and Member of Governing Board of other entities in the medical field, he is the Past President of the Italian Antismoking League (LIAF). He manages educational programmes on orthodontics and general dentistry, and will conduct a research project on the effects of smoking on dental health, in collaboration with the CoEHAR. He also collaborates with the UCMH (Cuba) Faculty of Dentistry.
Full Professor of Economics and Business Management at the University of Catania. President of the degree course in Business Economics, Rector Delegate for Technology Transfer, Start Up and Relations with SMEs, he is President of the University Spin Off Commission. His research interests concern the themes of entrepreneurship, corporate governance and the competitiveness of family businesses. He is co-editor of the Journal of Management and Governance. He is a journalist registered in the Order of Journalists of Sicily.
Giacomo Franco has been involved in projects for over thirty years. For 27 years he worked at IBM where he followed national and international projects, covering his entire possible career as PM. After exiting IBM at the end of 2012, he took on managerial and research positions at consortia of the University of Salerno, and continued to spread the skills of project management doing training, coaching and consulting for large, medium and small organizations, helping them in their organizational development. In love with the culture of giving, he accepted teaching in high school to teach young people what little he knows and what he knows he doesn’t know. He has always been passionate about the managerial application of the right mix of project management techniques, coaching, knowledge management, complexity management theories, psychology and neuroscience applied to the organization and Artificial Intelligence.
Paolo is a Construction Manager and Safety Manager with ten years of experience gained working in the transport infrastructure sector for public agencies. In 1999, as a volunteer at an educational agency, he began to study behavioural models, emotional intelligence and cognitive biases. He believes that if you are able to manage a four hours “capture the flag” game in the wood for a group of eight-year old children, without stepping in, you can also lead an asynchronous and remote cross-functional adult team without any problems. He is a lecturer in project management for the professional chamber at Fondazione Ordine degli Ingegneri di Catania since 2018. He has also founded the professionals network reSTART that aims to provide companies with services to foster change management by creating a people-oriented culture. Paolo is the Chair of Sicily Branch of the PMI Southern Italy Chapter.
Graduated in Physics at the University of Naples in 1980, Paola began her career at Olivetti in the field of industrial automation, and continued at Italtel Telematica, Olivetti Research, Sema, Engineering. She also held the position of Technical Director of the Telecommunications area in Sao Paulo (Brazil) and on her return to Italy she has dealt with special projects in the area of rail transport. She contributed to the constitution of the PMI Southern Italy Chapter and actively participated as a member of the Board: today she holds the role of President for the fourth consecutive year. In 2003 she obtained the PMP (Project Manager Professional) certification of the PMI, and the Executive Master in Business Administration. She is also Life&Business Coach at Luca Stanchieri’s Italian School of Life&Corporate Coaching.
Edoardo Grimaldi, graduated in Electronic Engineering, has been working for IBM Italy for 31 years. He has managed complex IT-organizational projects for different industries, coordinating international teams. He has been a teacher on project management issues during Masters and training courses organized by Universities, Business Schools and Professional Associations, and Speaker in national and international conferences / workshops on Project Management.
Paolo is a Construction Manager and Safety Manager with ten years of experience gained working in the transport infrastructure sector for public agencies. In 1999, as a volunteer at an educational agency, he began to study behavioural models, emotional intelligence and cognitive biases. He believes that if you are able to manage a four hours “capture the flag” game in the wood for a group of eight-year old children, without stepping in, you can also lead an asynchronous and remote cross-functional adult team without any problems. He is a lecturer in project management for the professional chamber at Fondazione Ordine degli Ingegneri di Catania since 2018. He has also founded the professionals network reSTART that aims to provide companies with services to foster change management by creating a people-oriented culture. Paolo is the Chair of Sicily Branch of the PMI Southern Italy Chapter.
Lorenzo grew up mixing passion for computer technology and sport. After a Master degree in Computer Science at the University of Catania and a career as semi-professional basket player, he still educates young people to discipline and team principles. Given his mindset for team building and problem solving, no surprise that Lorenzo has become an agile coach and a project leader. He spent more than fifteen years in ICT spanning over multiple domains and companies, including a few Fortune 500 companies. Thanks to his technical background and soft skills, he covered various roles (including sales and development) before finding his place in project management being one of the major actors in the agile and DevOps transition of entire companies. Today, Lorenzo serves as Scrum Master helping development teams to achieve and communicate their goals and results.
Renée O’Leary, PhD, obtained her doctorate in 2018 at the University of Victoria (Canada). Her dissertation, Vapour Products/E-cigarettes: Claims and Evidence encompasses an analysis of e-cigarette regulation, a review of reviews on e-cigarettes and cessation, and a systematic evidence review of youth vaping. She found her interest in tobacco research in 2006 with the simple observation that tobacco use was the world’s leading cause of death. Since that time, she has focused her research efforts on reducing the harms of cigarette smoking and has specialized in literature review methodologies.
Huseyin is a European intellectual property, innovation and state aid specialist, and currently the Director of Lexigent OU. Following his legal studies at the University of Nottingham, he joined the European Commission in 2008 where he spent a majority of his career. Until recently, he coordinated the European Commission’s expert panel on state aid in the field of research, development and innovation, and assisted in the restructuring of several European innovation ecosystems. In parallel, he advised the EU Institutions on IP rights and licensing. Over the last decade, he led the IP governance reform at the European Commission, creating the institution’s Central IP Service. He contributed to numerous EU policies and initiatives, including major financing instruments such as Horizon 2020.
Full Professor of Economics and Business Management at the University of Catania. President of the degree course in Business Economics, Rector Delegate for Technology Transfer, Start Up and Relations with SMEs, he is President of the University Spin Off Commission. His research interests concern the themes of entrepreneurship, corporate governance and the competitiveness of family businesses. He is co-editor of the Journal of Management and Governance. He is a journalist registered in the Order of Journalists of Sicily.
Graduated in Foreign Languages at the University of Catania, she completed her education with a Master in Project Management in the same University. She has been working at the Department of Clinical and Experimental Medicine since 2013, where she acquired a great experience in the management of all the administrative, financial and communication aspects of several national and international projects on THR science. She has also experience in scientific research, especially on e-cigarettes regulation aspects. She is the coordinator of the ISPM.
After the Master’s degree in Geophysics and a Research Fellow in Vulcanology, he started designing and managing research projects for the volcanology research team of the University of Catania. Thanks to a decennial experience as CEO of some web companies, he developed strong IT and technological skills, becoming an expert consultant in R&I and project management. Today he’s project manager for the University of Catania’s spin off ECLAT and consultant for different Departments of the same University.
After the Master’s Degree in Communication and in Programming and Management of Public Policies at the University of Catania, she completed her education with a Master in Management of Political, Social and Institutional Communication at the IULM University of Milan. Journalist since 2014, and expert in social communication and event organization, she is currently in charge of planning and coordinating communication campaigns against smoking for the CoEHAR.
Graduated in Science of Communication and Sociology of Networks, Information and Innovation at the University of Catania, she has experience and skills in Marketing, Social Media, Sociology and Methodology, Copywriting and Digital Strategies developed over the years. After participating in the First edition of ISPM, she was selected among the best students and began a working collaboration with Eclat in the role of Junior Project Manager in various research and communication projects, and currently serves as Community Manager in ISPM 2021.
Master’s degree in Geological Science and PhD in Geodynamics and Seismotectonics at University of Catania. On 2016 winner of the “Female Entrepreneurship” award for Sicily Region. On 2016 she co-founded a spin-off of the University of Catania, that she actually manages as CEO. Expert in planning and management of public and private projects; analysis of the level of innovation and technological competitiveness of a company or of a business project.
Federica Costanzo is graduated in Corporate Finance at University of Catania and also in Business Economics in the same University. Her work experience started in 2017 as Head of Marketing & Communication for an IT engineering firm and after as Executive Assistant to CEO in a management and consulting enterprise. In 2018, she was the Project Leader of a team of students from the Northeastern University of Boston for a business plan competition. She currently works as Controller & Financial Reporting in ECLAT, where she also conducted a research on “A Critical Interpretive Synthesis to Develop Quality Assessment Tools for E-Cigarette Systematic Reviews: Scope and Protocol”, together with Renee O’ Leary.
Chiara Nobis is a copywriter, passionate about sport and communication on health issues. Former ski athlete, after studying Law and several experience abroad, including an internship at an independent newspaper based at UN headquarter in New York, she joined the communication team of the COEHAR.
Educated at the Department of Informatics of the University of Catania, he has started specializing in web designing ten years ago. He is a WordPress specialist, self entrepreneur, with over 40 clients, designing hundreds of websites and web marketing campaigns, following P. Kotler guidelines and repudiating the fluff style of some “marketers”. Lately he has been passionate about google tag manager and advanced web analytics monitoring.
