Valerio De Luca is a Tenured Assistant Professor at Pegaso University (Italy), within the Department of Information Science and Technology since December 2024. He graduated with honors in Computer Engineering from the University of Salento (Italy).
In 2014 he earned a Ph.D. in Information Engineering from the University of Salento, where his research explored distributed systems for real-time multimedia content sharing over satellite internetworking. His doctoral studies involved overlay networks, real-time video streaming, and Quality of Experience (QoE) optimization.
Since 2015, Dr. De Luca has been a research fellow at the Augmented and Virtual Reality Laboratory (AVR Lab) of University of Salento and from January 2022 to November 2024, he has served as a fixed-term researcher (RTD-A) at the same laboratory. His research focused on XR applications for medicine, education, cultural heritage, and aerospace, with particular emphasis on:
- Integration of marker tracking data from stereo cameras with inertial sensor data for enhanced spatial alignment in extended reality applications.
- Augmented reality for UAV situational awareness, improving real-time remote control operations.
- GPU-based optimization algorithms for UAV path planning.
- Human factors in extended reality, including usability, cognitive workload, learnability, and presence factors in VR-based surgical navigation, touchless interaction, and digital storytelling applications
He has served as guest editor for special issues in the following scientific journals:
- Springer SN Computer Science – Special Issue: eXtended Reality Technologies and Applications.
- Springer Information Systems Frontiers – Special Issue: eXtended Reality and Artificial Intelligence in Medicine and Rehabilitation.
- MDPI Information – Special Issue: eXtended Reality for Social Inclusion and Educational Purposes.
Between November 2023 and December 2023, he delivered a 12-hour course on “eXtended Reality in Medicine and Surgery” to Biomedical Engineering students at Riga Technical University (RTU), Latvia.
In 2024, he chaired the Workshop on Extended Reality and Serious Games for Education and Learning (ERSeGEL 2024), co-located with the 16th International Conference on Computer Supported Education (CSEDU 2024) in Angers, France. He is currently organizing the 2025 edition of this workshop, which will take place in Porto, Portugal.