Education
Prof. Garagnani obtained a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from the University of Bologna in 1994, graduating with highest honours. He earned a PhD in Artificial Intelligence from the University of Durham (UK) in 1999 and a second PhD in Computational Cognitive Neuroscience from the University of Cambridge in 2009. He also holds a "Postgraduate Certificate in Learning and Teaching in Higher Education" from Goldsmiths, University of London (2023).
Academic Career
After six years of postdoctoral research as a Research Fellow at the Open University (UK) -- which included a six-month Visiting Scholar stint at the International Computer Science Institute in Berkeley (USA) --, in 2005 Prof. Garagnani joins the UK Medical Research Council’s Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit in Cambridge (UK). He later takes up a Postdoctoral Research Fellowship at the University of Plymouth (UK) and is also Visiting Researcher at Freie Universität Berlin (Germany). Between 2016 and 2025 he holds teaching positions at Goldsmiths, University of London, first as Lecturer and then as Senior Lecturer; since 2025 he has been an Associate Professor at the University of Bologna.
Teaching Activities
Prof. Garagnani has carried out extensive teaching at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels, contributing to the design and coordination of bachelor’s and master’s degree programmes. He is co-founder and co-director of the postgraduate programme MSc in Computational Cognitive Neuroscience at Goldsmiths (UoL), where he developed and lead the cutting-edge module “Modelling Cognitive Functions”. In addition to teaching core courses in programming, logic, and computational modelling, he has supervised numerous master’s and doctoral theses.
Scientific Activity
He is the author of numerous publications in leading international journals in the fields of computational cognitive neuroscience, neural modelling, and AI planning. He has participated in and coordinated research projects funded by national and international agencies, including the EPSRC, BBSRC, and the UK Medical Research Council. He maintains ongoing collaborations with European and international research groups and serves as a reviewer for numerous scientific journals.
Institutional Activities and Academic Appointments
He has held institutional and scientific roles at the international level, including serving as a member of the Organization for Computational Neurosciences' Board of Directors. He has acted as an evaluator for national and international public research funding bodies, such as the Italian Ministry for Education, University and Research (MIUR), the UK Medical Research Council, and the Royal Society.
Scientific and Editorial Board membership
Prof. Garagnani serves as Associate Editor and Review Editor for several international journals and regularly performs peer review for journals in neuroscience, psychology, and computational sciences (such as, IET Cognitive Computation and Systems, Frontiers in Computational Neuroscience). He sits on the Scientifica Venture Capital's Advisory Board and is a member of international scientific societies, including the Experimental Psychology Society and the American Psychological Association.
Awards and Honours
Over the course of his career, he has received numerous academic awards and honors, including prizes for scientific excellence and significant contributions to the fields of artificial intelligence and computational cognitive neuroscience, as well as competitive research grants and fellowships. In 2025, he was elected a full member of Sigma Xi (The Scientific Research Honor Society).
Other Activities
He is frequently invited as a speaker at international conferences and seminars and actively participates in scientific debate on the relationship between neural models, cognition, and artificial intelligence, contributing to the interdisciplinary development of the field of computational cognitive neuroscience.
