Chiara Petrioli

Chiara Petrioli is Full Professor at Sapienza University of Rome's Department of Computer, Control and Management Engineering and Deputy Rector for scouting, fundraising, and business incubation. She founded the spinoff WSENSE S.r.l. and coordinated the university's Computer Science Ph.D. program. Her research pioneers the Internet of Underwater Things, leading to breakthrough technologies featured in international media and the NT100 list.

Her research interests center on wireless, embedded, IoT, and cyber-physical systems, with a focus on underwater networking. She designs and optimizes communication protocols, security mechanisms, and energy-efficient architectures for underwater sensor networks, enabling applications in environmental monitoring, archaeology, and deep-sea exploration.

Recent publications highlight trends in underwater acoustic communications (e.g., dual-channel protocols, S2C modulation), security (authentication, key exchange), and energy efficiency (wake-up radio, UAV-assisted data collection). Applications span dissolved oxygen monitoring, submerged heritage preservation, and sustainable deep-sea mining impact assessment.

Her scientific awards include:

• IEEE Fellow 2021
• Fulbright Scholar
• Inspiring Fifty 2018
• N2Women 2019 Star in Computer Networking and Communications
• Gamma Donna Women Startup Award 2022
• Top 2% World Scientist by Stanford
• Repubblica D 100 Women to Change the World 2021

As principal investigator, she has led over twenty national and international projects, including EC projects GENESI and SUNRISE, and EASME projects ArcheoSub and Seastar. She founded WSENSE S.r.l., a spinoff that translates research into innovative technologies, resulting in international patents and features in BBC, RAI, Wired, and National Geographic.

She actively contributes to the academic community as chair of IEEE SECON steering committee, associate editor of ACM/IEEE Transactions on Networking, and through leadership roles in ACM SIGMOBILE and IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing.