Biographical Sketch

Leandro Pecchia is Chair of Biomedical Engineering at the University Campus Bio-Medico (UCBM) in Rome, Italy, which according to the Times High Education World University Ranking (THE WUR) is among the top 15% for Research. At UCBM, he is the Rector Delegate for Internationalization and Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), and directs the “Intelligent technologies for health and wellbeing”. Since December 2021, the Italian Minister of Health appointed Prof Leandro Pecchia as one of the three medical device experts of the Technical and Clinical Committee of the Ministry of Health.

From 2020 to September 2023, he worked as Innovation Manager for the World Health Organization (WHO), Emergency program (WHE) Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) unit.

Since September 2013, he has been professor of biomedical engineering at the University of Warwick, UK, where he still co-direct the Applied Biomedical Signal Processing and Intelligent eHealth Lab (ABSPIE). From 2010 to 2013, he worked with the University of Sheffield and the University of Nottingham, in the UK.

Prof Pecchia is a leading partner in several European research projects focusing on IA and IoT for healthcare remote monitoring (e.g., Large Scale Pilot Manager of the GATEKEEPEP project) and the use of AI and robots to improve hospital efficiency and safety (e.g., Pilot Manager of the ODIN project). Since he moved in Italy in 2022, he was involved in National projects on medical robots (Fit4MedRob) and on the use of AI for rare diseases (heart, eye and cancer).

Prof Pecchia authored more than 200 peer-reviewed papers on journals, books and conferences in the fields of Artificial Intelligence, medical devices, biomedical signal processing, Health Technology Assessment (HTA), Internet of Things and machine learning applied to active and healthy ageing and management of chronic diseases.

Prof Pecchia is the Secretary General of the International Federation of Medical and Biological Engineering (IFMBE), and NGO in official relations with the WHO, and the Past President of the European scientific society of biomedical engineering (EAMBES). In the past, he served the international community of biomedical engineers as Secretary General (2018-22) of the International scientific society of medical physics and biomedical engineering (IUPESM), Treasurer (2018-25) of the IFMBE Clinical Engineering Division, and IFMBE Healthcare Technology Assessment Division Chair (2015-18) and Treasurer (2012-15).