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The project Social Transmission of Cognitive and Emotional States in the Care of Alzheimer’s Disease Patients” – STAD benefits from a 1.48 million € grant from Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway through the EEA and Norway Grants. The aim of the project is to to develop an intervention based on theater and drama therapy for diminishing memory loss and psychiatric symptoms, like anxiety, that manifest in Alzheimer’s disease. Project Promoter: National University of Theatre and Film „I. L. Caragiale” from Bucharest, Romania. Project Partner: Kavi Institute for System Neuroscience, NTNU, Todheim, Norway EEA-RO-NO-2018-0606 (Contract No7, May 31th 2019)

Team

Ioana Carcea
MD/Ph.D., Principal Investigator STAD Project, UNATC, CINETic
Ioana Carcea, Phd, MD is the PI of both STAD and MET projects from UNATC, CINETic. Ioana is Assistant Professor at Rutgers University, where she investigates social communication and social buffering of stress in rodents. At UNATC, CINETic, Ioana aims to address similar topics in human subjects.
MET project
www.carcealab.com
Alexandru Berceanu
Associate professor Ph.D
His practice has at it's core the potential of art and game as emotional and social development environment. Games and theatrical game in particular provide a special frame for development and natural learning. He is interested in understanding how games contribute in shaping human society through artistic practice and by developing knowledge on their biological substrate through neuroscience, neuroaesthetics and experimental psychology tools.
Between 2016 to 2020 he was the director of CINETic research centre in digital interaction at UNATC IL Caragiale for four years, a research centre which he founded at UNATC IL Caragiale which he also founded (cinetic.arts.ro). He works as a researcher in  CINETic Centre in LDCAPEI lab dedicated to interdisciplinary research in psychology neuroscience theatre film and VR.  Alexandru Berceanu’s interest in neuroscience started in his PhD study where he worked on BCI interfaces in real time for detecting arousal changes of the spectators along other aspects of psychophysiology involved in theatre watching.  Based on this interest he initiated in 2013 the Research Centre CINETic for interdisciplinary research at the National University for Theatre and Film where he was teaching directing for more than ten years. The CINETic centre was established through a grant for which Berceanu coordinated the grant proposals in 2013 for the POSCCE Grant Competition and later on worked as deputy director of the investment grant which was awarded (7.5 million Euros).
Alexandru published interdisciplinary results in several academic journals including Frontiers in Psychology Journal
Researchgate
Alexandru Berceanu is a director and cultural manager. He directed numerous theatre performances, VR experiences and series. His work was exhibited in national and international festivals and  won national and international awards. He is a founding member of the dramAcum NGO. Starting from his interest for new playwriting and extending performance areas Alexandru Berceanu collaborated at interdisciplinary projects as Immersive and Subversive Installation 1958-1958, the graphic novel Mickey on Danube or VR experience Bucharest 41 and VR experience Touch
He curated several interactive art exhibitions like Distant Art
CINETic
Organic Proxy at the National Museum for Contemporary Art Bucharest
MNAC
Berceanu obtained his PhD in theatre at Babeș-Bolyai University Cluj with the subject: Violence in Performativity Arts, From Hypnotic Power to Social Responsibilityconducted by professor Miruna Runcan. He subsequently published the book Breaking the punishment paradigm, a moving image of the representation of violence in theatre and media (Editura Universitară 2019).
Razvan Ioan Vasilescu, Ph.D.s
Technical and financial Manager STAD Project, MET Project Manager
Razvan has extensive experience in project management and implementation (over 15 years) and is at the beginning of his research activity (since 2017). He is currently involved in several research projects (STAD, MET etc.) and a PhD student at UNATC.
Ciprian Facaeru
Ph.D.s, UNATC, CINETic
Dr. Justin Samuel Riceberg
Ph.D.s, UNATC, CINETic
Dr. Irina Oane (Popa)
MD/Ph.D, UNATC, CINETic
Irina Oane is a neurologist and scientific researcher in the Epilepsy and Sleep Monitoring Unit at the Emergency University Hospital Bucharest. Irina Oane holds a PhD from the “Carol Davila” University of Medicine and Pharmacy Bucharest after studing the functions and connectivity of the human cingulate cortex using direct brain stimulation in patients with drug-resistant epilepsy explored by the SEEG method. Among Irina Oane's interests are the study of connectivity and brain functions, direct brain stimulation, the organization of the epileptogenic zone.
Andrei Daneasa
MD, UNATC, CINETic
Dr. Ioana Mindruta
MD/Ph.D, volunteer UNACT, CINETic & University Emergency Hospital, Bucharest
Sabin Serban
volunteer
Experience Designer and software Developer for AR and VR platforms. A graduate of the Ion Mincu University of Architecture and Urbanism in 2013, with a master's thesis in Generative Language Applied to Architecture, Sabin has been a co-founder of the Augmented Space Agency since 2015, where he coordinates and collaborates in the development of AR and VR applications.
Florin Dumitru
Creative developer
Experience in cross-platform software design, user interaction with sensors and gamification of fields unrelated to the game.
Professional background in the IT field started with first working as a game tester, following as a Software QA Analyst for a Smart Glasses Assisted Reality solution, and finally as a software tester.
The first role as a developer started with mobile applications using the mobile developing software environment, as well as game engines. Soon after, the focus was on developing games and creating prototypes.Currently MR. Florin Dumitru is working as a creative developer in the Augmented/ Virtual/ Mixed Reality & New Media field. All of this concludes in a mix of having experience on multiple roles in the production pipeline of a software product, experience of prototyping and study of design patterns and experience with multiple software environments and platforms.
Prof. univ. dr. Christian Doeller
Leader, NTNU, Kavli
In STAD project, Christian Doeller is the Leader of the norwegian Partner, NTNU, KVALI Institute.
Christian Doeller's research at the Kavli Institute for Systems Neuroscience is pursued in two research pillars: (1) translational neuroscience of ageing and Alzheimer's disease (largely in the context of projects within the Jebsen Centre for Alzheimer's Disease and projects funded by Helse Midt-Norge) and (2) cognitive neuroscience of learning and memory (largely in the context of ERC-CoG project GEOCOG). Christian Doeller's research team at Kavli has strong links to the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig (Germany), where Christian Doeller ist Managing Director of the Institute and Director of the Department of Psychology. He is also Professor of Psychology (Learning and Memory) at Leipzig University. For more information of Doeller's research vision and a full list of publications, see doellerlab.com 
www.doellerlab.com
Tobias Navarro-Schroder
Co-Leader, NTNU, Kavli
In STAD project, Tobias Navarro-Schroder is the Co-Leader of the norwegian Partner, NTNU, KVALI Institute.
The Navarro Schroder Group in NTNU, KAVLI seeks to integrate functional neuroimaging with behavioural tasks to answer fundamental questions about neural computation. To this end, the group investigates:

- How the human brain uses visual information to map the surrounding environment and remember past events
- How the brain computes the location of people and objects using ecologically relevant virtual reality experiments and neuroimaging
- Whether individual differences in memory performance correlate to structural differences in the brain or unique patterns of neurotransmitter release
Investigator’s Tools:  

- Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI)
- Diffusion-Weighted Magnetic Resonance Imaging (DW-MRI)
- Magnetic Resonance (MR) Spectroscopy
- Virtual Reality (VR)  
Stian Framvik
Engineer
Stian Framvik (NTNU, Kavli) worked on the STAD project as a staff engineer from July 2019 to June 2020 and now is back again. Given his training in Psychology he played an important role in assembling the cognitive tests that are added to our main navigation experiment. He co-designed the experiment, and helped develop and test the VR navigation paradigm. He finished his Master thesis in the second half of 2020, and since January 2021 he works again on the STAD projec, this time as a part-time staff engineer. His main task is to support the data acquisition of the fMRI experiment.
Renil Mathew
Engineer
Renil Mathew (NTNU, Kavli) worked as a staff engineer on the STAD project January-July 2020. His role in the project was to set up our data analysis infrastructure on a national high-performance computing service. He implemented our analysis pipeline: install software on the SAGA cluster, collaborate with the Saga IT group to set up interactive sessions, set up a data transfer protocol, write a fMRI pre- and post-analysis pipeline in Matlab. Currently, he is applying for PhD positions in the United States of America.
www.sigma2.no
Natalie St. John
Engineer
Natalie St. John (NTNU, Kavli) started working on the STAD project as a staff engineer in September 2020. Her main task was to conduct pilot experiments for the behavioral navigation experiment, and for the fMRI experiment. She also implemented the eye tracking recording, including writing scripts in Python to synchronize the eye tracking recording with the fMRI scanner. In January 2021 she trained Stian Framvik how to conduct the fMRI data acquisition. In February 2021 Natalie starts as a PhD candidate in the Navarro-Schroeder group.