Marco Riani

Marco Riani is Full Professor of Statistics at the Department of Economic and Business Sciences, Faculty of Economics, University of Parma since 2006. He directs the Interdepartmental Center Ro.S.A. (Robust Statistics Academy) and has held academic positions including Post Doctoral Fellow (1996-1998), Lecturer (1998-1999), and Associate Professor (1999-2006) at the same institution.

Education:

• Bachelor of Science in Economics (cum laude), University of Parma (1986-1990)
• PhD in Statistics, University of Florence (1992-1995)

His research centers on robust statistics with methodological focus on robust regression, time series, and multivariate analysis. Applied work spans risk management, quality evaluation, international trade monitoring, and medical statistics (neonatal health parameters). He pioneers outlier detection without arbitrary thresholds and robust machine learning.

Recent publications highlight robust transformations for regression, explainable AI, and applications in environmental/medical fields. Key trends include automated fraud detection in trade data, soil moisture estimation through time series, and biomarker analysis for birth anomalies.

Scientific awards:

• Best Italian PhD thesis in Statistics (1997)
• Best contribution at MATLAB expo 2016 (Milan)

As advisor, he has supervised five PhD theses and over 100 degree theses. His grant leadership includes Horizon 2020 PrimeFish (2014-2019) and multiple Italian Ministry projects on robust methods. External expertise spans EU Automated Monitoring Tool projects (AMT3-AMT5) for trade fraud detection.

• Principal Investigator: 11 national/EU projects (2000-2019)
• Steering roles: ICORS, SIS CLADAG, Ro.S.A. center

He co-developed the FSDA toolbox (MATLAB/R) with the European Commission, enabling robust multivariate analysis for institutions like the Joint Research Centre. The Ro.S.A. center drives his collaborative work on outlier detection and data mining.