Elena Pegolo, PhD is a postdoctoral researcher in the Movement Disorders and Neuromodulation Center at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), where she investigates non-motor symptoms in Parkinson’s disease and deep brain stimulation (DBS) therapies under the supervision of Simon Little.

Pegolo earned her PhD in Bioengineering from the University of Padova, Italy, with a dissertation titled “Neuromechanical control in Parkinson’s Disease: definition of new biomarkers of motor and non-motor symptoms” (supervisor: Zimi Sawacha). Her doctoral work explored multiple facets of Parkinson’s disease through novel biomarker development, including quantitative assessment of hypomimia (reduced facial expressivity), interactions between non-motor symptoms and DBS, and the coupling of gait and cognition. During her PhD, she completed a research semester at St. George’s University of London, collaborating with Lucia Ricciardi on neuromodulation research. She holds an MSc in Bioengineering from the University of Padova, where she conducted her thesis research at Reykjavik University, Iceland, and a BSc in Biomedical Engineering, also from the University of Padova.

Pegolo’s  expertise bridges clinical neuroscience and biomedical technology. Her research interests include movement disorders, facial expression analysis, cognitive-motor interactions, and neuromodulation techniques. She has extensive hands-on experience with deep brain stimulation systems, local field potential recordings, electroencephalography, and multimodal movement analysis (stereophotogrammetry, electromyography, inertial sensors). Her work emphasizes translating complex neurophysiological data into clinically meaningful insights for improving diagnosis and treatment of neurodegenerative diseases.