Maria-Paola Forte

I love to create technology that can positively impact people’s lives

Hello! I am Paola - a scientist who loves turning research into real-world technology!

I lead the technical development of a stealth-mode startup, building AI-driven technology from the ground up — from research prototype to product. I am also a guest scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, where I develop a wearable bioimpedance sensor that detects self-touch — contact between different parts of a person’s own body — in real time, even when vision-based systems fail due to occlusion, lighting, or body position.

This sensor grew out of my Ph.D. research on accessibility for the Deaf community, which began with a computer vision method for reconstructing 3D signing avatars (CVPR 2023). That work exposed a key limitation: nearly half of all signs involve self-touch, which standard motion-capture systems struggle to detect. I validated the approach for general use across body types and contexts (IEEE Transactions on Instrumentation and Measurement) and combined it with computer vision in BioTUCH, a hybrid system presented at ICCV 2025, improving 3D pose accuracy during self-contact. The sensor is now patent-pending, with applications in human pose estimation, motion and gesture tracking for gaming and assistive input devices, and mental health monitoring through touch-based behavioral signals.

Education

  • Ph.D. Computer Science, Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems (2025); degree conferred by Universität Tübingen
  • M.Sc. Bioengineering, Politecnico di Milano (2018), including an exchange semester at the University of Queensland
  • B.Sc. Biomedical Engineering, University of Genova (2015)