The Directors of the School
Prof. Ferdinando Bersani got his degree in Physics at the University of Bologna in 1967. From 1968 to 1974 specialized in Microbiology and worked at the Institute of Microbiology and Virology, University of Bologna. He is currently retired professor of Physics at the Medical Faculty of the University of Bologna. He carried out his scientific research in Biophysics and Medical Physics at the Department of Physics of the same University. His present research is mainly focused on the Biological Effects of Electromagnetic Fields. He is one of leading researchers in this field in Italy, and his work is largely recognized worldwide. He published about one hundred of research papers and more than sixty in Bioelectromagnetics, on peer-review journals, with special attention to the cellular effects of ELF and RF fields, and to their possible relevance concerning the health risk on one side and the biomedical applications on the other side. Moreover, since 1996 he is also working on theoretical-biophysical models of biological systems with particular respect to the immune system and nervous system. He was vice-president of the European Bioelectromagnetics Association (EBEA) and member of the American Bioelectromagnetic Society (BEMS). He was Associated Editor of the Bioelectromagnetics Journal and currently belongs to its Editorial Board. He is also the co-director of the International School of Biolectromagnetism “A. Chiabrera” at the Foundation and Centre for Scientific Culture E. Majorana (Erice, Sicily).
Dr Maria Rosaria Scarfì until April 2024 was Research Director and head of the Bioelectromagnetics Unit at the CNR, Institute for the Electromagnetic Sensing of the Environment (IREA), Naples, Italy. Currently she is Associate Senior Researcher at CNR-IREA. Her main research activities are in the evaluation of in vitro biological effects of non-ionizing electromagnetic fields, from static fields to THz. She is also involved in the evaluation of biological effects induced in cell cultures exposed to high voltage, micro- and nano-second electric pulses. She has been responsible for the IREA group in the framework of the International Bioelectric Consortium. She authored or co-authored more than 120 papers in peer-reviewed journals. She has been external expert of the Working Group on Electromagnetic Fields for the “Opinion on the potential health effects of exposure to electromagnetic fields”, EU Commission – SCENIHR; she is a member of the core group for the preparation of the World Health Organization monograph on risk assessment for RF fields and member of the Scientific Committee of the Swedish Radiation Safety Authority – Electromagnetic Fields. She was a board-member of the European Bioelectromagnetics Association (EBEA) and of the Bioelectromagnetic Society (BEMS). She served as Associated Editor for several peer-reviewed journals (Bioelectromagnetics, PlosOne, Scientific report). Since 2017 she is the co-Director of the International School of Biolectromagnetism “A. Chiabrera” at the Foundation and Centre for Scientific Culture E. Majorana (Erice, Sicily).
The School
Topics in Bioelectromagnetics have come to Erice many times in the past, especially in the 1980s, with international courses and workshops on non-ionising radiation, and today many participants of those courses contribute greatly to the development of this research field.
Following the request of the European Bioelectromagnetics Association (EBEA) and the Inter-University Centre for the study of the Interaction between Electromagnetic Fields and Biosystems (ICEmB), in 2003 the Ettore Majorana Centre has established a Permanent School of Bioelectromagnetism, named after Alessandro Chiabrera, who is considered as a master by the young scientists of the two organizations.
