Sofia Pescarin

Sofia Pescarin

Research Director

Florence
sofia.pescarin@cnr.it

Professional profile

Virtual Museum | Digital Heritage | Virtual Archaeology | Exhibition Design | Interaction Media Design

Research director at CNR ISPC (Istituto di Scienze del Patrimonio Culturale), in Florence, where she is chairing the group within the Digital Heritage Innovation Lab (DHiLab). She has a degree in Humanities (Topography of Ancient Italy), a master in Exhibition Design and a PhD in History and Computing. She has been a researcher from 2000 to 2019 at CNR ITABC (Istituto di Tecnologie Applicate ai Beni Culturali) where she has co-chaired the Virtual Heritage Lab (VHlab).

She has taught, from 2018 at the University of Bologna "Intangible Artifacts, Cultural Heritage and Multimedia" (INF 01) . Since 2021 she is professor of "Interaction Media Design" at the Master DHDK (Digital Humanities and Digital Knowledge) of the University of Bologna. Since 2023 she is committee member and tutor of the national PhD in "Heritage Science". Since 2017, she is Chief Editor of the Elsevier Journal "Digital Application in Archaeology and Cultural Heritage" (DAACH).

She has been the technical coordinator of the project "virtual museum of the Scrovegni Chapel" Padova (2003). She has obtained the e-content award with the open source web3d project "Virtual Rome". Between 2008 and 2017, she has been the scientific director of "Archeovirtual", exhibition of interactive projects applied to Cultural Heritage, within the Mediterranean Expo BMTA in Paestum. She has also chaired the national summer school of "Virtual Archaeology", until 2017.

Between 2011 and 2014 she has been the scientific coordinator of the FP7 Network of Excellence V-MUST.NET, dedicated to Virtual Museums. During V-MUST, she has been curating the international exhibition "Keys To Rome" (Le chiavi di Roma) in 2014, organised parallely in 4 museums (Museo dei Fori Imperiali - Roma, APM- Amsterdam, City Hall in Sarajevo and Biblioteca Alexandrina in Alexandria).

She has coordinated the Italian research unit of the H2020 REVEAL project, dedicated to Videogames and Game Based Learning, during which she has worked at the game design of "A Night in the Forum" (Una notte nel Foro) for PlayStation VR. She has also worked in other EU projects, such as EPOCH, 3d-ICONS, ARIADNE, SHOCC, E-RIHS (Digilab) and SPICE. She is currently coordinating the EU Horizon project PERCEIVE; she is also WP leader of the PNRR project CHANGES - Spoke 4 (Virtual Technologies) and Task leader of the PNRR project H2IOSC (prototyping platforms for virtual exhibitions).

CNR Disciplinary Fields and Research Management Sectors

  • SH8_1 Science and Technologies for Cultural Heritage
  • SH8_4 Museums, exhibitions, conservation and restoration
  • SH8_6 Architecture, design, craft, heritage, knowledge, conservation, creative industries

Groups & Labs CNR ISPC

Digital Heritage Innovation Lab →

Publications

CNR IRIS platform →
ORCID →

Highlight

Pescarin, S., Aga, B., Fanini, B., Fedon, G. C., Ferdani, D., Graf, H., … & Clay, A. (2025).  Perceptive Enhanced Realities of Coloured Collections through AI and Virtual Experiences. Digital Heritage. The Eurographics Association 2025. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2312/dh.20253350

Pescarin, S., Barandoni, C., Clay, A., Papadopoulos, G., & Sandu, I. C. A. (Eds.). (2025). Chromatic Visions: Exploring Colour in Art, Archaeology and Digital Realities, Part I. Springer Nature. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-032-07792-9 (open access)

Pescarin, Sofia, Giuseppe Città, and Samuele Spotti. Authenticity in interactive experiences. Heritage 7.11 (2024): 6213-6242. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3390/heritage7110292

CV ITA