Dr. Elena Gavagnin

Work at ZHAW

Position

• Co-Head of Information Systems and Technologies
• Senior Lecturer and Project Leader for Data Science

Focus

• Machine Learning
• Predictive Analytics
• Computational Astrophysics

Teaching

Senior Lecturer and Project Leader for Data Science

Experience

• Business Intelligence Data Scientist
  SWISS Intl. Air Lines
  11 / 2017 - 09 / 2019
• Teaching Assistant
  University of Zurich
  01 / 2013 - 02 / 2017

Education and Continuing education

Education

• PhD / Institute of Computational Science
  University of Zurich
  01 / 2013 - 02 / 2017
• MSc / Astrophysics
  Università degli Studi di Bologna
  09 / 2010 - 12 / 2012
• BSc / Physics
  Università degli Studi di Bologna
  09 / 2007 - 12 / 2010

Continuing Education

CAS Higher and Professional Education
Zurich University of Applied Sciences
07 / 2021

Network

Membership of networks

• SKACH
• Alumni Association of Collegio Superiore, University of Bologna

ORCID digital identifier

ORCID ID: 0000-0001-5146-3759

Projects

• Science Fiction Prototyping: Human-AI Futures / Team member / ongoing
• AI-Accelerated Radiative Transfer Simulations for SKAO / Project leader / ongoing
• Square Kilometre Array: Mock-observations via generative deep learning (GenAI4SKA) / Project leader / ongoing
• Multimodal Detection of Toxicity in Video Games / Project leader / completed
• ERZ-SmartAssistant / Project leader / completed
• Multimodal Anonymization of Gameplay Data / Project leader / completed
• Transforming clinical assessments: Explicitly articulating implicit clinical decision-making to train AI / Team member / completed
• Intent detection in citizen-based damage reporting systems / Project leader / completed
• Tele-Assessment: Leveraging Deep Learning to Assess Upper Limb Kinematics after Stroke with Off-the-shelf Webcams / Team member / completed
• Square Kilometre Array: Mock-observations via generative deep learning / Project leader / completed
• Digital Companion / Team member / completed
• Dynamic pricing against food waste in university catering facilities / Project leader / completed
• Acceptance of an app for contact-tracing of SARS-CoV-2 in the Swiss population / Team member / completed
• Gamification: A browser-based Tool for Experiments / Team member / completed

Publications

Articles in scientific journal, peer-reviewed

• Denzel, P. et al. (2026) 'Galactic alchemy : deep learning map-to-map translation in hydrodynamical simulations', Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 546(4), p. stag155. doi: 10.1093/mnras/stag155.
• Unger, T. et al. (2025) 'Using deep learning to detect upper limb compensation in individuals post-stroke using consumer-grade webcams : a feasibility study', Frontiers in Medicine, 12(1645369). doi: 10.3389/fmed.2025.1645369.
• Unger, T. et al. (2024) 'Upper limb movement quality measures : comparing IMUs and optical motion capture in stroke patients performing a drinking task', Frontiers in Digital Health, 6(1359776). doi: 10.3389/fdgth.2024.1359776.
• Sauerzopf, L. et al. (2024) 'Evaluating inter- and intra-rater reliability in assessing upper limb compensatory movements post-stroke : creating a ground truth through video analysis?', Journal of NeuroEngineering and Rehabilitation, 21(217). doi: 10.1186/s12984-024-01506-7.
• Schilling, F.-P. et al. (2022) 'Foundations of Data Science : a comprehensive overview formed at the 1st International Symposium on the Science of Data Science', Archives of Data Science, Series A, 8(2). doi: 10.5445/IR/1000146422.

Book chapters, peer-reviewed

Gavagnin, E. (2025) 'AI for architects', in Gerber, A., Atalay Franck, O., and Mieskes, M. (eds) Architectural intelligence in the age of artificial intelligence. Bielefeld: transcript, pp. 29–36. doi: 10.14361/9783839430699.

Written conference contributions, peer-reviewed

• Heierli, J. et al. (2026) 'Too nice to be human : cross-lingual consistency in personality-related response patterns of large language models', in 2026 IEEE Swiss Conference on Data Science and AI (SDS). IEEE, pp. 205–208. doi: 10.1109/sds70563.2026.00038.
• Heierli, J., Bahar Ganjineh, R. and Gavagnin, E. (2025) 'Evaluating LLM capabilities in low-resource contexts : a case study of Persian linguistic and cultural tasks', in Estevanell-Valladares, E. L. et al. (eds). Shoumen: Incoma, pp. 111–120. doi: 10.26615/978-954-452-100-4-012.
• Heierli, J. et al. (2025) 'From conversation to agent : LLM-driven design of structured healthcare agents', in Procedia Computer Science. Elsevier, pp. 269–276. doi: 10.1016/j.procs.2025.10.205.
• Mladenov, P. et al. (2025) 'Missing pieces : how humans and GPT-4.1 detect absence and predict the unseen', in Proceedings of the 1st International Workshop on MLLM for Unified Comprehension and Generation. Association for Computing Machinery, pp. 9–13. doi: 10.1145/3746276.3760466.
• Sauerzopf, L. et al. (2025) 'Toward ground truth : evaluating therapists' reliability in video-based assessment of upper limb compensatory movements post-stroke', in RehabWeek, Chicago, USA, 12-16 May 2025.
• Städeli, R. et al. (2024) 'Multimodal conversational interactions for facial composites : a case for stateful prompt orchestration', in Capol, C. et al. (eds) Proceedings of the 9th edition of the Swiss Text Analytics Conference. Association for Computational Linguistics, pp. 59–67. doi: 10.21256/zhaw-32139.
• Wu, W. et al. (2024) 'PROMISE : model-driven stateful prompt orchestration for persuasive conversational interactions', in 9th Swiss Text Analytics Conference – SwissText 2024, Chur, Switzerland, 10-11 June 2024.
• Unger, T. et al. (2024) 'Quantifying upper limb movement quality after stroke with a webcam', in 13th World Congress for Neurorehabilitation, Vancouver, Canada, 22-25 May 2024.
• Chavez Panduro, C. G. et al. (2024) 'Movement analysis through videos in occupational therapy : insights from an ongoing research project for clinical practice', in 6. Kongress der Ergotherapie, Fribourg, Schweiz, 24.-25. Mai 2024.
• Wu, W. et al. (2024) 'PROMISE : a framework for model-driven stateful prompt orchestration', in Islam, S. and Sturm, A. (eds) Intelligent Information Systems. Cham: Springer, pp. 157–165. doi: 10.1007/978-3-031-61000-4_18.
• Helland, S., Gavagnin, E. and de Spindler, A. (2023) 'Divide et impera : multi-transformer architectures for complex NLP-tasks', in Proceedings of the 8th edition of the Swiss Text Analytics Conference. Association for Computational Linguistics, pp. 70–75. doi: 10.21256/zhaw-30386.

Other publications

• Denzel, P. et al. (2026) Optimization of deep learning models for radio galaxy classification. arXiv. doi: 10.48550/arXiv.2601.04773.
• Brucker-Kley, E. et al. (2024) Science fiction prototyping : friendship with artificial intelligence. Winterthur: ZHAW Zürcher Hochschule für Angewandte Wissenschaften. doi: 10.21256/zhaw-2495.
• Brucker-Kley, E. et al. (2024) Science Fiction Prototyping : Freundschaft mit Künstlicher Intelligenz. Winterthur: ZHAW Zürcher Hochschule für Angewandte Wissenschaften. doi: 10.21256/zhaw-2494.
• Denzel, P., Schilling, F.-P. and Gavagnin, E. (2023) 'Map-to-map translation for SKA mock observations and cosmological simulations', in Hammers & Nails 2023 - Swiss Edition, Ascona, Switzerland, 29 October - 3 November 2023. Winterthur: ZHAW Zürcher Hochschule für Angewandte Wissenschaften. doi: 10.21256/zhaw-29047.
• Denzel, P. B., Schilling, F.-P. and Gavagnin, E. (2023) 'Deep learning the SKA : the Square Kilometer Array project', in Datalab Symposium, Winterthur, Schweiz, 11. Januar 2023. ZHAW Zürcher Hochschule für Angewandte Wissenschaften. doi: 10.21256/zhaw-27219.

Oral conference contributions and abstracts

Sauerzopf, L. et al. (2024) 'Transforming clinical assessments : rater reliability in video-based evaluation of upper extremity after stroke', in Annual Conference of the Swiss Society for Biomedical Engineering (SSBE), Winterthur, Switzerland, 5 September 2024.

Publications before appointment at the ZHAW

• Elena Gavagnin, Andreas Bleuler, Joakim Rosdahl, Romain Teyssier, Star cluster formation in a turbulent molecular cloud self-regulated by photoionization feedback, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Volume 472, Issue 4, December 2017, Pages 4155–4172,
• Elena Gavagnin, Michela Mapelli, George Lake, A critical look at the merger scenario to explain multiple populations and rotation in iron-complex globular clusters, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Volume 461, Issue 2, 11 September 2016, Pages 1276–1287,
• M. Mapelli, A. Vallenari, R. D. Jeffries, E. Gavagnin, T. Cantat-Gaudin, G. G. Sacco, M. R. Meyer, E. J. Alfaro, M. Costado, F. Damiani, A. Frasca, A. C. Lanzafame, S. Randich, R. Sordo, S. Zaggia, G. Micela, E. Flaccomio, E. Pancino, M. Bergemann, A. Hourihane, C. Lardo, L. Magrini, L. Morbidelli, L. Prisinzano and C. C. Worley, "The Gaia-ESO Survey: N-body modelling of the Gamma Velorum cluster", A&A, 578 (2015) A35,

go back