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Mirko Casu

AI Researcher · Licensed Clinical Psychologist

Research interests

Language models and AI agents and their effects on mental health and human safety; bias in human and machine judgement; human perception of synthetic media; AI for clinical psychology.

Education

PhD, Computer Science · University of Catania · defence pending 2023 – 2026
Thesis: Human Behaviour as Target and Medium of Artificial Intelligence in Clinical and Forensic Contexts
Advisor Prof. Sebastiano Battiato · co-advisor Prof. Pasquale Caponnetto · IPLab
MSc, Clinical Psychology · University of Catania 2020 – 2023
110/110 cum laude · thesis on a smoking-cessation app, published in BMC Psychology
BSc, Psychological Sciences · University of Sassari 2015 – 2019
105/110 · thesis on video games, violence, rehabilitation and addiction

Experience

AI Research Consultant · Eternal Tech, Acireale, Italy Sep 2026 – Present
Company building AI infrastructure for digital identity, persistent memory and intelligent agents
  • Design the evaluation methodology and criteria for a proprietary AI technology, and build the benchmarking system that applies them
  • Analyse the technology's architecture and write the scientific manuscript reporting its evaluation
Visiting Doctoral Researcher · MINTS Lab, EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland Oct 2025 – Mar 2026
Host Prof. Andrea Cavallaro
  • Ran a controlled comparison of diffusion and autoregressive LLMs as automated judges, characterising their evaluation biases; submitted to EACL 2027
  • Analysed conversational trajectories between people and AI assistants
PhD Researcher · IPLab, University of Catania, Catania, Italy Aug 2023 – Jul 2026
SAMOTHRACE project · AI for wearables and cognitive bias in forensics
  • Built ORION, an end-to-end pipeline that detects smoking episodes from wrist motion sensors (manuscript under review)
  • Introduced the impostor bias, a systematic doubt that real media are authentic, and validated it with 746 participants whose accuracy at spotting AI images sat at chance (47–55.5%)
  • Co-built two forensic benchmarks, WILD (20,000 images, 20 generators) and SynthForensics (6,815 videos, 5 text-to-video models; NeurIPS 2026), on which state-of-the-art detectors lose 29 AUC points on average
  • Co-developed an on-device autism screening pipeline from children's gaze, distilled into a 1.6M-parameter ONNX ensemble that runs offline in an open-source Android app
  • Led scoping reviews on AI chatbots for mental health (300+ citations, cited in UK Parliament POSTnote 737), wearables for smoking detection (49 studies, IEEE JBHI) and AI for eating disorders (7,545 records ranked by an LLM)
Early professional experience, Catania, Italy 2021 – 2023
  • Specialist assistant for pupils with disabilities (I Girasoli cooperative); clinical trainee in applied psychoanalysis (APA Catania); videomaker for the University of Catania, ECLAT and CoEHAR

Publications

Own name in bold. Links lead to the DOI or to the paper.

Conference papers

2026

  1. SynthForensics: Benchmarking and Evaluating People-Centric Synthetic Video Deepfakes
    R. Leotta, S. A. Sambataro, C. V. Ragaglia, M. Casu, Y. Petralia, F. Guarnera, L. Guarnera, S. Battiato · In Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS), Evaluations & Datasets Track, 2026 · Accepted, to appear

2025

  1. Deepfake Forensic Analysis: Source Dataset Attribution and Legal Implications of Synthetic Media Manipulation
    M. Cassia, L. Guarnera, M. Casu, I. Zangara, S. Battiato · In 2025 IEEE International Conference on Metrology for eXtended Reality, Artificial Intelligence and Neural Engineering (MetroXRAINE), 2025
  2. WILD: a new in-the-Wild Image Linkage Dataset for synthetic image attribution
    P. Bongini, S. Mandelli, A. Montibeller, M. Casu, et al. (17 authors) · In 2025 International Joint Conference on Neural Networks (IJCNN), 2025

2024

  1. A Case Study on the Use of Hypnosis Combined with Virtual Reality in Psychological Partner Violence
    M. Casu, S. Bellissima, G. Farruggio, C. Farrauto, P. Caponnetto · In 2024 IEEE International Conference on Metrology for eXtended Reality, Artificial Intelligence and Neural Engineering (MetroXRAINE), 2024

Journal articles

2026

  1. Protocol-Aware, On-Device Per-Image ASD Classification on Saliency4ASD via Multi-Stream Distillation
    M. O. Spata, M. Casu, F. Rundo, S. Battiato · IEEE Open Journal of the Computer Society, 2026
  2. Fraud is not just rarity: A causal prototype attention approach to realistic synthetic oversampling
    C. Giusti, L. Guarnera, M. Casu, S. Battiato · Knowledge-Based Systems, 2026
  3. Digital technologies and artificial intelligence in eating disorders: A scoping review of prevention, screening, and treatment approaches
    M. Casu, L. Marletta, C. V. Ragaglia, P. Caponnetto, S. Battiato · Computers in Human Behavior Reports, 2026

2025

  1. Smoking Detection and Cessation: An Updated Scoping Review of Digital and Mobile Health Technologies
    M. Casu, F. Guarnera, G. R. M. L. Rosa, S. Battiato, P. Caponnetto, R. Polosa, R. Emma · IEEE Journal of Biomedical and Health Informatics, 2025
  2. A (Mid)journey Through Reality: Assessing Accuracy, Impostor Bias, and Automation Bias in Human Detection of AI-Generated Images
    M. Casu, L. Guarnera, I. Zangara, P. Caponnetto, S. Battiato · Human Behavior and Emerging Technologies, 2025
    746 participants; open data and code

2024

  1. Breaking the Silence: Exploring Peritraumatic Distress and Negative Emotions in Male and Female Physical Domestic Violence Victims
    P. Caponnetto, V. Lenzo, A. Sardella, G. C. Prezzavento, M. Casu, M. C. Quattropani · Health Psychology Research, 2024
  2. Breathing tech: digital health innovations for managing asthma-related psychological dimensions
    M. Casu, P. Caponnetto · Exploration of Digital Health Technologies, 2024
  3. A Multi-Level Analysis of Biological, Social, and Psychological Determinants of Substance Use Disorder and Co-Occurring Mental Health Outcomes
    C. I. Belfiore, V. Galofaro, D. Cotroneo, A. Lopis, I. Tringali, V. Denaro, M. Casu · Psychoactives, 2024
  4. Psychological Factors, Digital Health Technologies, and Best Asthma Management as Three Fundamental Components in Modern Care: A Narrative Review
    P. Caponnetto, G. C. Prezzavento, M. Casu, R. Polosa, M. C. Quattropani · Applied Sciences, 2024
  5. Behavioral Therapy for People With Diabetes Who Smoke: A Scoping Review
    R. Sammut, J. Grech, R. Polosa, …, M. Casu, et al. (17 authors) · Journal of Primary Care & Community Health, 2024
  6. Exploring the Therapeutic Potential of Virtual Reality: A Review on the Simulation of Psychedelic Effects for Treating Psychological Disorders
    M. Casu, C. Farrauto, G. Farruggio, S. Bellissima, S. Battiato, P. Caponnetto · Psychology International, 2024
  7. Night Eating Syndrome: A Review of Etiology, Assessment, and Suggestions for Clinical Treatment
    M. Bargagna, M. Casu · Psychiatry International, 2024
  8. GenAI mirage: The impostor bias and the deepfake detection challenge in the era of artificial illusions
    M. Casu, L. Guarnera, P. Caponnetto, S. Battiato · Forensic Science International: Digital Investigation, 2024
    Introduced the impostor bias; referenced by INTERPOL (Project SynthWave)
  9. AI Chatbots for Mental Health: A Scoping Review of Effectiveness, Feasibility, and Applications
    M. Casu, S. Triscari, S. Battiato, L. Guarnera, P. Caponnetto · Applied Sciences, 2024
    Cited in UK Parliament POSTnote 737; most-cited paper (300+ citations)

2023

  1. Rolling the Dice: A Comprehensive Review of the New Forms of Gambling and Psychological Clinical Recommendations
    M. Casu, C. I. Belfiore, P. Caponnetto · Psychiatry International, 2023
  2. User evaluation and feasibility test of an app designed for smoking cessation in Italian people who smoke: preliminary findings from an uncontrolled pre-test post-test open study
    P. Caponnetto, M. Casu, D. Crane, L. Ross, M. C. Quattropani, R. Polosa · BMC Psychology, 2023

2022

  1. Update on cyber health psychology: Virtual reality and mobile health tools in psychotherapy, clinical rehabilitation, and addiction treatment
    P. Caponnetto, M. Casu · International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 2022
  2. New Perspectives in Psychopathology and Psychological Well-being by Using Forest Therapy: A Systematic Review
    P. Caponnetto, L. Inguscio, S. Triscari, M. Casu, A. Ferrante, D. Cocuzza, M. M. Maglia · The Open Psychology Journal, 2022

2021

  1. The effects of physical exercise on mental health: From cognitive improvements to risk of addiction
    P. Caponnetto, M. Casu, M. Amato, et al. (11 authors) · International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 2021

Book chapters

Sistemi di IA ad alto rischio di cui all'Articolo 6, Paragrafo 2
M. Casu, A. Di Pierno, O. Pontorno, I. Zangara, L. Guarnera, S. Battiato, D. Curtotti · In AI Act e Legge nazionale sull'Intelligenza Artificiale, Giuffrè, 2026

Workshop and challenge papers

2025

  1. Causal Prototype Attention Classifier: An Interpretable Model for Credit Card Fraud Detection Under Extreme Class Imbalance
    C. Giusti, M. Casu, L. Guarnera, S. Battiato · In Joint Proceedings of the Thematic Workshops at Ital-IA 2025, 2025
  2. (DFF ’25) 1st Deepfake Forensics Workshop: Detection, Attribution, Recognition, and Adversarial Challenges in the Era of AI-Generated Media
    S. Battiato, M. Casu, F. Guarnera, L. Guarnera, G. Puglisi, O. Pontorno, C. V. Ragaglia, Z. Akhtar · In Proceedings of the 33rd ACM International Conference on Multimedia, 2025
  3. Adversarial Attacks on Deepfake Detectors: A Challenge in the Era of AI-Generated Media (AADD-2025)
    S. Battiato, M. Casu, F. Guarnera, L. Guarnera, G. Puglisi, O. Pontorno, C. V. Ragaglia, Z. Akhtar · In Proceedings of the 33rd ACM International Conference on Multimedia, 2025

Under review

ORION, smoking-episode detection from wrist motion sensors
Manuscript under review
Evaluation bias of diffusion and autoregressive LLMs used as automated judges
Submitted to EACL 2027 · title withheld during double-blind review

Preprints

2024

  1. Virtual Reality Neurofeedback Training combined with Trauma-Informed Motivational Interviewing for the Treatment of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
    S. Triscari, M. Casu, E. Uccelli, N. M. Vitale, V. Rapisarda, A. Fakhrou, P. Caponnetto · Preprints.org, 2024

2022

  1. The “Slotstreams” Phenomenon on Twitch. Tv: Can it Lead to Online Gambling?
    M. Casu, C. I. Belfiore · Preprints.org, 2022

Open models, data and software

Service

Talks and posters

Teaching and public engagement

Licensure

Skills and languages

Last updated October 2026 · full publication list with PDFs and code at mirkocasu.github.io/publications