It is an honor to officially kickoff the 4-year, 1.05 mill. Euro research project in applied biosemiotics: Motor Health and Semiotic Function in the Kinesthetic Expressivity of Neurodegenerative Disease (MASKED) funded by the Horizon Europe / Marie Sklodowska-Curie Staff Exchange (MSCA-SE).
Brian Khumalo, L’udmila Lacková Bennett, and Nicola Zengiaro give an introductory lecture about the MASKED project to the students and the professors in the Department of General Linguistics at Palacký University Olomouc in the Czech Republic on December 4, 2025.
Nicola Zengiaro‘s secondment to Palacký University Olomouc in Olomouc, the Czech Republic focused on advancing research within Work Package 2 of the MASKED project. He leveraged his specialized expertise as a biosemiotician to bridge the gap between semiotic theory and the clinical study of facial hypomimia. During this period, Zengiaro initiated the preliminary development of...
The secondments for MASKED have now officially begun, with collaborating researchers Libuška Kormaníková and Barbora Jurková traveling from Palacký University Olomouc in the Czech Republic to Toronto Metropolitan University in Canada.
The team meets up at the International Semiotics Institute (ISI) at Palacký University Olomouc in the Czech Republic on December 11 and 12, 2024, including Yogi Hale Hendlin, Brian Khumalo, L’udmila Lacková Bennett, Jamin Pelkey, Siddharth Satishchandran, and Devon Schiller, and together begin writing an MSCA-SE grant application for what will become MASKED.
The first conversation and idea exchange—or “brain storming”—behind the MASKED project takes place between Brian Khumalo, Devon Schiller, Elena Pegolo, and Siddharth Satishchandran in the areas of Haight-Ashbury and North Beach in San Francisco, California on September 20 and 21, 2024.
© 2026 MASKED Consortium. All rights reserved. This project is funded by the Horizon Europe / Marie Skłodowska-Curie Staff Exchange under Grant Agreement No. 101236781.