Jacopo Staiano

Jacopo Staiano is a Senior Assistant Professor (RTDb) at the Department of Economics & Management, University of Trento (Italy). His academic journey includes previous positions as Head of Research at reciTAL.ai, research affiliate at Data-Pop Alliance, senior data scientist at Fortia Financial Solutions, and post-doctoral researcher at LIP6, UPMC - Sorbonne Universités and Fondazione Bruno Kessler.

Staiano received his BSc in Computer Engineering from the University of Pisa (2003), an MA in Sonic Arts from Queen's University of Belfast (2005), and an MSc in Human Language Technologies and Interfaces from the University of Trento (2010). He completed his PhD under Prof. Nicu Sebe at the Department of Information Engineering and Computer Science, University of Trento. His academic visits include the Intelligent Systems Lab at University of Amsterdam, Ambient Intelligence Research Lab at Stanford University, Human Dynamics Lab at MIT Media Lab, and Telefonica I+D.

Staiano's research spans multiple domains with a strong focus on Natural Language Processing and Human-Computer Interaction. His work ranges from modeling human behavior when interacting with technology to analyzing social network structures and virality dynamics. His recent publications demonstrate a significant shift toward large language models, with applications in sustainability reporting, medical diagnostics, financial analysis, and bias detection. His work shows sophisticated integration of technical AI capabilities with social science perspectives.

Staiano has received several prestigious awards throughout his career, including an Honorable Mention at ACM DIS 2012, Best Paper Award at ACM UbiComp 2014, the UMUAI James Chen Award 2016, and most recently the Ten Year Technical Impact Award from ACM ICMI 2024. These awards reflect the sustained impact and quality of his research across multiple domains.

His research has been supported by collaborations with major institutions including MIT Media Lab, Stanford University, and Telefonica I+D, as well as industry partnerships. His work on projects like DepecheMood for emotion analysis and SALSA for multimodal group behavior analysis has established him as a significant contributor to affective computing and social signal processing.

Staiano maintains active connections with multiple research communities, particularly in the areas of computational social science, natural language processing, and affective computing. His work bridges technical AI development with real-world applications in finance, healthcare, and social good initiatives.