In January 2022, I was appointed as Assistant Professor in the Cardiovascular and Respiratory Physiology group (CRPH) at the faculty of Science and Technology of the University of Twente.

I obtained my Master degree in Biomedical Engineering at the Univ. Campus Bio-Medico of Rome and my II level Master degree in Clinical Engineering at the Univ. of Florence. I obtained a PhD in Biomedical Engineering at the Nalecz Institute of Biocybernetics and Biomedical Engineering in Warsaw, in collaboration with the Institute of Clinical Physiology of the National Research Council in Italy. For my post-doc, I joined the group of Cardiac Surgery of KU Leuven in Belgium, thanks to a Marie Curie scholarship. I was also visiting researcher at the Center for Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering of the Medical Univ. of Vienna, thanks to the Frans Van de Werf scholarship.

My research focuses on the development of high-fidelity physiological computational and in vitro simulators to support the design and testing of cardiorespiratory therapies, particularly in the field of mechanical circulatory support (e.g., ECMO, LVAD, and TAH). These simulators are also used to unravel complex cause–effect relationships in acute and chronic pathophysiological conditions, which are often characterized by multiple, concomitant cardiopulmonary impairments. In such complex scenarios, simulators can facilitate the development and testing of new monitoring and management algorithms, thereby accelerating the implementation of more effective and personalized therapeutic strategies.

In addition, simulators represent powerful tools for healthcare education, enhancing teaching and training for medical and paramedical students through realistic, hands-on learning experiences.

I strongly believe interdisciplinarity is a key factor for a successful research in cardiovascular modelling.  I conduct my activity in strict collaboration with clinicians, covering several activities (clinical studies, in vivo studies, data collection and analysis), and then translate the acquired pathophysiological and clinical knowhow into simulators.

Expertise

  • Medicine and Dentistry

    • Left Ventricular Assist Device
    • Hemodynamic
    • Cardiovascular System
    • Ventricular Assist Device
    • Heart Output
    • Physiology
    • Congestive Heart Failure
    • Left Ventricle

Organisations

Publications

2026

PMB-NN: Physiology-centered hybrid AI for personalized hemodynamic monitoring from photoplethysmography (2026)Computer methods and programs in biomedicine, 285. Article 109479. Zhang, Y., Fresiello, L., Veltink, P. H., Donker, D. W. & Wang, Y.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cmpb.2026.109479Hypotension Prediction Index versus Mean Arterial Pressure Alarm for Preventing Intraoperative Hypotension in Elective Non-Cardiac Surgery: A Randomized Controlled Trial (2026)Anesthesiology, 1-40 (E-pub ahead of print/First online). Florax, A. A., Mulder, M. P., van Ieperen, R. P., Fresiello, L., Donker, D. W. & Potters, J. W.https://doi.org/10.1097/ALN.0000000000006338Cross-View Attention Fusion Net: A Prior-Guided Dual-View Representation Learning for Cardiac Output Estimation from Short-Term PPG Signals (2026)[Working paper › Preprint]. ArXiv.org. Zhang, Y., Cui, B., Fresiello, L., Veltink, P. H., Donker, D. W. & Wang, Y.https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2605.19666More ECMO Flow, Same PCWP: Just What the Model Tells Us (2026)Journal of the American College of Cardiology, 87(17), e735-e736. Meuwese, C. L., Donker, D. W., Fresiello, L., van Mieghem, N. M. & Broomé, M.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jacc.2025.09.1612Spoilt for choice? Temporary mechanical circulatory support in cardiogenic shock: The importance of the patient (2026)Perfusion, 41(1), 60S-65S. Donker, D. W. & Fresiello, L.https://doi.org/10.1177/02676591261424661Computational physiological models for hemodynamic management in critical care: a systematic literature review focusing on model design, credibility and clinical readiness (2026)Computers in biology and medicine, 205. Article 111561. Mulder, M. P., Warnaar, R. S. P., Arendshorst-Ruuls, T. F., van Loon, L. M., Meuwese, C. L., Broomé, M., Oppersma, E., Donker, D. W. & Fresiello, L.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compbiomed.2026.111561Physiological-model-based neural network for modeling the metabolic–heart rate relationship during physical activities (2026)Computer methods and programs in biomedicine, 277. Article 109240. Zhang, Y., Fresiello, L., Veltink, P. H., Donker, D. W. & Wang, Y.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cmpb.2026.109240Temporal evolution of arterial pulse pressure trajectories as early predictor of weaning success in venoarterial extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (2026)Perfusion (E-pub ahead of print/First online). Hermens, J. A., Fennema, A., van der Tak, K., Imholz, D., Fresiello, L., Pladet, L. C., van Steenwijk, M. P., Meuwese, C. L., Donker, D. W. & van Loon, L. M.https://doi.org/10.1177/02676591261439578Comparison of a mean arterial pressure alarm to the hypotension prediction index in preventing intraoperative hypotension in elective moderate- to high-risk non-cardiac surgical patients: A study protocol for a blinded, parallel, randomized controlled trial with a non-inferiority framework (2026)Trials, 27(1). Article 104 (E-pub ahead of print/First online). Mulder, M. P., Florax, A. A., Harmannij-Markusse, M., Fresiello, L., Donker, D. W. & Potters, J.-W.https://doi.org/10.1186/s13063-025-09389-2

Research profiles

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