Vittorio Solina is a Researcher at the Department of Mechanical, Energy and Management Engineering (DIMEG) of the University of Calabria, specializing in industrial systems simulation and digital twin technologies. His work spans Industry 4.0/5.0 applications, supply chain optimization, and human-robot collaboration. Affiliation: University of Calabria Academic Role: Researcher (Legge 240/10) Research Focus: Digital twins, simulation modeling, sustainable manufacturing His research emphasizes advanced simulation tools for decision support, including applications in Industry 4.0 , Smart Manufacturing , and Agri-Food Supply Chains . Recent work explores adaptive simulation optimization for Industry 5.0 and 5G-enabled robotics. Key publication trends include: (1) Digital twin integration for supply chain resilience (2024-2025), (2) Simulation automation methodologies (2025), and (3) Human-robot collaboration frameworks (2024).
Roberto Navigli is a Full Professor in the Department of Computer, Control and Management Engineering at Sapienza University of Rome, where he leads the Sapienza NLP Group. He has held academic positions at Sapienza since 2007, progressing from Researcher to Associate Professor, and now Full Professor. Navigli is internationally recognized for his groundbreaking work in multilingual natural language processing and computational semantics. His research spans multiple areas within Natural Language Processing, with a particular focus on multilinguality , lexical semantics (Word Sense Disambiguation and induction), sentence-level semantics (Semantic Role Labeling and Semantic Parsing), and Large Language Models . As the leader of the Minerva LLM project, he pioneered the development of the first pretrained LLM in Italian. His creation of BabelNet, the largest multilingual encyclopedic computational dictionary covering 271 languages and about 14 million concepts, represents a landmark achievement in computational linguistics. Professor Navigli's recent publications demonstrate a strong focus on advancing multilingual capabilities of language models, addressing challenges in semantic understanding across languages, and developing robust evaluation frameworks. His work on Italian LLM optimization, lexical ambiguity in machine translation, and cross-lingual safety gaps reflects his commitment to building more accurate and reliable language technologies that work effectively across diverse linguistic contexts. AAAI Fellow (2025) EurAI Fellow (2024) ELLIS Fellow (2024) ACL Fellow (2023) Outstanding Paper Awards at ACL 2024, ACL 2023, and NAACL 2021 Best Resource Paper Award at ACL 2022 Prominent Paper Awards from the Artificial Intelligence Journal (2023, 2017) META Prize 2015 for BabelNet Professor Navigli has successfully secured substantial research funding, including two prestigious ERC Grants (MultiJEDI ERC Starting Grant 2010-2016 and MOUSSE ERC Consolidator Grant 2017-2023, totaling around 3 million euros), PI of PRIN 2017 and PRIN 2020 projects (overall 1.4 million euros), and a Google Focused Research Award (around 300k$). He has mentored over 30 PhD students, many of whom have gone on to successful careers in academia and industry. His leadership extends to major international conferences, serving as General Chair of ACL 2025 and Program Co-Chair of ACL-IJCNLP 2021. As the director of the Sapienza NLP Group and co-leader of the Transversal Project on Large Language/Multimodal Models in the FAIR (Future Artificial Intelligence Research) project, Professor Navigli oversees a vibrant research ecosystem focused on advancing the state-of-the-art in natural language understanding across languages. His spinoff company, Babelscape, translates academic research into practical applications for industry.
Elena Maria Baralis is a Full Professor at the Department of Control and Computer Science (DAUIN) at the Polytechnic University of Turin. She serves as Pro-Rector, member of the Board of Directors (without voting rights), member of the Academic Senate (without voting rights), and coordinator of the University's Permanent Observatory for Monitoring the Academic Sector. She chairs the Control and Computer Engineering Department and previously chaired the Computer Engineering School from October 2012 to October 2018. Her research interests focus on database systems and data mining, specifically explainable AI, bias detection in data analytics, and machine learning algorithms for big data. Her work spans various application domains including predictive maintenance, Industry 4.0, and healthcare. Recent publications demonstrate her expertise in speech processing, bias mitigation, and innovative neural network architectures like Kolmogorov-Arnold Networks. Her research output shows a clear trend toward addressing fairness and explainability in AI systems while exploring novel approaches to speech and language understanding. Professor Baralis has received significant recognition including becoming a Fellow of the Academy of Sciences of Turin in 2017. She has served as Editor-in-Chief for IEEE Internet of Things Journal (2016-2019) and Knowledge and Information Systems (2014-present). She actively mentors doctoral students including Claudio Savelli (researching Machine Unlearning), Eleonora Poeta, Giuseppe Gallipoli, Alkis Koudounas, and others. Her research is supported by numerous projects including AI4CTI (Artificial Intelligence for Cyber Threat Intelligence, 2025-2028), Smart manufacturing driven by Machine Learning in Industry 4.0 (2019-2020), and I-REACT (2016-2019).
Luca Iocchi is a Full Professor at Sapienza University of Rome, where he teaches in the Master in Artificial Intelligence and Robotics program. He is affiliated with the Department of Computer, Control, and Management Engineering and the Faculty of Engineering of Information, Computer Science and Statistics. Iocchi serves as an Associate Editor for Artificial Intelligence Journal and has been the scientific coordinator of Spoke of PNRR project FAIR (Future AI Research). His educational background includes: Master in Engineering in Computer Science (Laurea in Ingegneria Informatica) cum Laude, Sapienza Università di Roma, 1995 PhD in Engineering in Computer Science (Dottorato in Ingegneria Informatica), Sapienza Università di Roma, 1999 Professor Iocchi's research focuses on cognitive robotics, task planning, multi-robot coordination, robot perception, robot learning, human-robot interaction, and social robotics. His work has significant applications in security, surveillance, and environmental monitoring. He has published over 200 referred papers with an h-index of 46 (Google Scholar). His research bridges theoretical AI with practical robotic systems operating in real-world environments, with a particular emphasis on developing intelligent systems that can interact effectively with humans. His recent publications show a strong trend toward multi-agent reinforcement learning, trust modeling in human-AI teams, UAV coordination, and planning systems. There's a clear focus on making robotic systems more reliable, efficient, and capable of operating in complex real-world scenarios like healthcare facilities and smart cities. His work increasingly integrates formal planning approaches with machine learning techniques. Professor Iocchi has received numerous scientific awards: 1999 Top Paper Award WebNet'99 2006 Best Paper Award RoboCup 2006 2008 Best Robotics Demo Award AAMAS 2008 2014 Best Paper Award For Engineering Contribution RoboCup 2014 2017 RoboCup@Home SSPL 2017 - 3rd place 2018 Canada-Italy Innovation Award 2019 Best Paper Award For Engineering Contribution RoboCup 2019 As an academic advisor, Iocchi has directed the PhD Program in Engineering in Computer Science from 2020 to 2023. He has been Principal Investigator for numerous research projects including SciRoc (European Robotics League), AI4EU (European AI project), BUBBLES, AIPlan4EU, ROSITA, Trust Your Agents, and FAIR. His research has been supported by EU H2020 programs, national grants, and industry collaborations, demonstrating strong connections between academia and practical applications. Professor Iocchi is actively involved with the Cognitive Cooperating Robots Lab (LabRoCoCo) and is a key member of the RoboCup Federation, having served as Vice-President from 2019 to 2024. He has played a significant role in benchmarking domestic service robots through RoboCup@Home and the European Robotics League Service Robots (ERL-SR), which he helped establish. His leadership in organizing international scientific robot competitions has been instrumental in advancing the field of service robotics.
Dino Pedreschi is a Full Professor of Computer Science at the University of Pisa, affiliated with the Department of Computer Science (DI-UNIPI). He co-leads the Pisa KDD Lab, a joint research initiative between the University of Pisa and the Italian National Research Council’s Institute of Information Science and Technology, one of the earliest labs focused on data mining and knowledge discovery. His research spans Big Data Analytics , Social Network Analysis , Human Mobility Analysis , Privacy-by-Design , Explainable AI (XAI) , and ethical data mining . He is a pioneer in privacy-preserving data mining and has contributed significantly to understanding societal impacts of AI and big data. Recent publications highlight trends in explainable AI , fairness-aware data mining , urban mobility modeling , and socio-economic nowcasting , reflecting a strong interdisciplinary focus combining computer science, social science, and policy. Notable scientific awards include: Google Research Award on Privacy (2009) University of Pisa Ordine del Cherubino (2017) Pedreschi has played leadership roles in major conferences such as ECML/PKDD (Co-Chair 2004), ICDM (Vice-Chair 2005), and ICDE (Vice-Chair 2014). He founded the Business Informatics MSc program at the University of Pisa to train interdisciplinary data scientists. He has been a visiting scientist at the University of Texas at Austin, CWI Amsterdam, UCLA, and the Barabási Lab at Northeastern University. He actively contributes to European research initiatives including SoBigData++, FAIR, and TAILOR, and has advised on AI policy, including testimony before the Italian Parliament on AI and labor markets. He is a key member of the Pisa KDD Lab, a leading research group in data science and AI ethics, fostering collaboration between academia and public institutions.
Aldo Gangemi is a Full Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Bologna, specializing in Informatics (INFO-01/A). His research integrates Semantic Technologies, Natural Language Processing, Data Science, and Cognitive Science to address challenges in knowledge representation, ontology engineering, and cultural heritage informatics. He co-founded the STLab at ISTC-CNR and DHARC at the University of Bologna, and is on leave from Sorbonne Paris Nord University (Computer Science Lab - LIPN). Scientific roles include serving as area chair for Web Semantics , editorial board member for Semantic Web and Applied Ontology , and conference chairs for major events like WWW2015 and ESWC2018. He has led European projects such as GALEN, WonderWeb, NeOn, and MARIO, and developed software tools like FRED, Aemoo, and Framester. Research interests focus on semantic technologies, knowledge patterns, and applications in humanities, medicine, law, and fisheries. Over 250 peer-reviewed publications span these areas, with emphasis on ontology-based knowledge integration, multimodal reasoning, and ethical AI. His work bridges cognitive science and technological innovation, particularly in virtual reality's societal applications and cultural heritage preservation. Notable contributions include the PRIVAFRAME knowledge graph for sensitive data, the ImageSchemaNet ontology for embodied cognition, and the Sandra neuro-symbolic reasoner. His interdisciplinary approach addresses challenges in AI ethics, creative systems, and citizen-driven data curation.
Roberto Navigli serves as an Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science at Sapienza University of Rome, conducting pioneering research in Natural Language Processing. He holds editorial leadership positions including Associate Editor of the Artificial Intelligence Journal and membership on the Journal of Natural Language Engineering editorial board. His research program centers on multilingual semantic technologies, with foundational contributions to word sense disambiguation, ontology learning from unstructured text, and large-scale knowledge acquisition systems. Navigli's work bridges theoretical linguistics with practical applications in relation extraction and open information extraction, emphasizing cross-lingual capabilities and resource scalability. Publication analysis reveals a sustained focus on semantic resource development, evolving from early WordNet extensions (2003) to contemporary open knowledge extraction frameworks (2015). This trajectory demonstrates consistent innovation in transforming unstructured text into structured knowledge representations for multilingual applications. Major scientific recognition includes: Marco Cadoli 2007 AI*IA Prize for best doctoral thesis in AI Marco Somalvico 2013 AI*IA Prize for best young AI researcher ERC Starting Grant (2011-2016) for multilingual word sense disambiguation Google Focused Research Award on Natural Language Understanding Navigli directs significant research initiatives funded by competitive grants, including his ERC project and Google collaboration, while providing academic leadership through area chair roles at ACL, WWW, and *SEM conferences. His service as senior program committee member for IJCAI and editorial board positions underscores substantial community impact.
Alessandra Maria Paola Broccolini is an Associate Professor at the Department of Social and Economic Sciences (DISSE), Sapienza University of Rome. She specializes in cultural anthropology, with a focus on intangible cultural heritage, ecomuseums, and urban/rural territorial studies. Since 2016, she has led the Italian Society for Museography and Demo-Ethno-Anthropological Assets (SIMBDEA) and coordinates national research projects like PRIN 2022 on local museums and PRIN 2020 on marginal Italian territories. Current affiliations: Sapienza University of Rome, Ecole Française de Rome [2021-2026] Research themes: Identity politics, festivals/rituals, traditional knowledge, migration-heritage intersections Key projects: Ecomuseo Casilino Ad Duas Lauros, UNESCO cultural heritage nominations Fieldwork: 5-year study in Naples' Pallonetto district (1994-1999), Bolsena Lake fisheries, Irpinia carnivals Collaborations: ICCD, Regione Lazio, Universidad de Huancayo (Peru) Her publications address heritage regimes in Italy, UNESCO's 2003 Convention implementation, and ethnographic case studies on Mediterranean festivals, urban ecomuseums, and agricultural biodiversity. She teaches Cultural Anthropology and Anthropology of Territory at Sapienza's Faculty of Political Science, Sociology, and Communication.
Antonella Poggi is an Associate Professor in the Department of Computer, Control and Management Engineering (DIAG) at Sapienza University of Rome, holding the position in Computer Science and Engineering (IINF-05/A). She recently obtained the National Scientific Qualification as full professor in July 2024. Her research interests include: Database theory, data integration, and exchange Knowledge representation and reasoning Ontologies, knowledge graphs, and Description Logics Data governance and personal information management Metamodeling and semi-structured data Recent publications (2021-2025) demonstrate a consistent focus on ontology-based data access, with key contributions in query answering, data abstraction, and knowledge graph semantics. Her work bridges theoretical foundations with practical applications, as evidenced by co-founding OBDA Systems Srl. Dr. Poggi has led the MODEUS research project (MIUR SIR) and participated in international collaborations. She is an active member of the academic community, serving as General Chair for IRCDL 2024 and CIKM 2026, and Program Co-Chair for multiple conferences including KEOD and ODOCH. Her academic service includes extensive program committee memberships for top conferences (ICDT, EDBT, AAAI, etc.) and leadership in organizing workshops and conferences in digital libraries and knowledge engineering.
Asunción Gómez Pérez is a Spanish computer scientist and Full Professor at the Technical University of Madrid (UPM) . She currently serves as Vice-Rector for Research, Innovation and Doctoral Studies at UPM and holds a seat at the Real Academia Española . She has authored over 300 publications and accumulated 20,000 citations. Education : PhD in Computer Science (UPM, 1993), MBA (Comillas Pontifical University) Leadership Roles : Director of the Department of Artificial Intelligence (2008–2016), Academic Director of AI Master’s/PhD programs (2009–2016), Executive Director of UPM’s Artificial Intelligence Lab (1995–1998) Her research focuses on Semantic Web and Ontology Engineering , with applications in knowledge representation, machine-machine communication, and multilingual data integration. She pioneered methods for ontology validation, metadata licensing, and AI-driven social inclusion. Key publication trends include: Ontology evaluation frameworks (e.g., OOPS!) Linked Data quality models and validation tools Multilingual and cross-lingual AI applications Interoperability solutions for smart cities and healthcare Machine Learning for social exclusion prediction Ontology-driven library and lexicography systems Scientific Awards Fellow of the European Academy of Sciences Ada Byron Prize She has led projects like the NeOn Methodology for ontology development and contributed to the European framework for linked data rights (LD Terms). Her work bridges theoretical research with practical implementations in AI and Semantic Technologies.
Diego Calvanese is a Full Professor in Computer Engineering at the Faculty of Engineering of the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, Italy. He serves as Spokesperson of the Institute of Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence and Director of the Smart Data Factory technology transfer lab at NOI Techpark. As Coordinator of the Intelligent Integration and Access to Data (In2Data) research group, part of the Research Centre for Knowledge and Data (KRDB), he leads significant research initiatives in knowledge representation and data management. Calvanese's research focuses on virtual knowledge graphs for data access and integration, ontology-based data access, description logics, semantic web technologies, graph data management, and verification of data-aware processes. His work bridges theoretical foundations with practical applications through the Ontop framework, which enables SPARQL query answering over OWL 2 QL ontologies connected to external data sources. His research has substantial practical impact, powering the South Tyrol Open Data Hub Knowledge Graph and supporting numerous European and national research projects. With more than 400 refereed publications and over 39,000 citations (h-index 80), Calvanese's recent work demonstrates continued leadership in virtual knowledge graphs, ontology-based data federation, explainable AI through knowledge representation, and integration of complex data types including 3D city models and raster data. His publications show a clear trajectory from theoretical foundations toward increasingly practical and applied research addressing real-world data integration challenges across multiple domains. ACM Fellow (2019) EurAI Fellow (2015) AAIA Fellow Program Chair of PODS 2015 and KR 2020 General Chair of ESSLLI 2016 Calvanese has secured significant research funding through numerous competitive projects including EU H2020 INFRAEOS Project (INODE), Italian PRIN Project (HOPE), FESR Project (IDEE), and EU FP7 IP Project (Optique), totaling close to 6.4M Euro. As an originator and co-founder of Ontopic, the first spin-off of the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, he has successfully translated research into commercial applications. He serves as Associate Editor of Artificial Intelligence (AIJ) and has participated in over 200 program committee roles for international conferences. As Director of the Smart Data Factory technology transfer lab and coordinator of the In2Data research group, Calvanese bridges academic research with industry applications, focusing on practical implementations of knowledge graph technologies. His work with the KRDB Research Center has established Bozen-Bolzano as a significant hub for knowledge representation and data management research in Europe.
Giacomo Fiumara is an Associate Professor at the University of Messina, Department of Mathematical and Computer Sciences, Physical Sciences and Earth Sciences. He holds academic rank since October 2021. Previously, he served as a Permanent Researcher (2008–2021) and secondary school teacher (1997–2008). He earned a Doctorate in Physics (1993) and a Degree in Physics (1989), both from the University of Messina. He is an associate member of the Accademia Peloritana dei Pericolanti and qualified as an associate professor in INF/01 and ING-INF/05 sectors. His research focuses on social network analysis, network science, data science, criminal networks, knowledge representation, bioinformatics, and computational modeling. He has supervised over 170 theses and advised PhD students in Mathematics and Computational Sciences. Key collaborations include work with Prof. Pasquale De Meo on criminal networks and complex systems, and international projects with institutions in the US, UK, China, and Australia. Teaching includes courses on Algorithms, Data Structures, Bioinformatics, and Machine Learning across Computer Science, Engineering, and Medical programs since 2000. He also contributed to international programs at Lviv Polytechnic, Birzeit University, Cluj-Napoca, and Murcia. His editorial roles include Associate Editor of IEEE Access and Academic Editor of Complexity. He holds a patent for predictive analysis of criminal organizations' social structures and has received FFABR research funding. Key awards include FFABR funding (2017) and recognition in the FFABR Unime 2020 II edition. He organized conferences like Crimenet 2014 and participated in high-profile events such as the 2022 Complex Networks conference in Palermo, presenting on quantum walks for criminal network analysis.
Dr. Gianluca Demartini is a leading researcher in Human-in-the-loop AI Systems with significant contributions to Crowdsourcing , Information Retrieval , and Generative AI applications. His work bridges Machine Learning and Human-Computer Interaction , focusing on Bias Management , Fact-Checking , and Ethical AI . Major Affiliations : L3S Research Center, ScienceWISE platform, and collaborations with institutions like University of Queensland and University of Padua Over 15 years, his research has explored Crowdsourcing Quality Control (Mechanical Cheat 2012), Entity Ranking (2008-2013), and Semantic Search . Recent work (2024-2026) focuses on Generative AI Impacts in domains like Media Literacy , Data Curation , and Visual Analytics . Scientific Recognition : Best Paper Award (Top 1.4%) at ICTIR 2023 Best Short Paper Award (Top 0.6%) at ECIR 2020 Honorable Mention (Top 2%) at CSCW 2020 Best Demo Award at ISWC 2011 3rd Best Paper at LA-WEB 2008 His 15 most recent publications (2024-2026) demonstrate expertise in LLM-based Content Moderation , Immersive Data Visualization , and Trustworthy AI Systems . He has pioneered methods for Bias Detection in Wikipedia (2013), Entity Ranking (2008-2013), and Human-AI Collaboration frameworks. His work consistently addresses ethical challenges in AI for Social Good and Responsible Data Science .
Michaela Valente is an Associate Professor in Early Modern History at the Department of Political Science, Sapienza University of Rome , where she has taught since 2021. Previously, she was Associate Professor at the University of Molise (2005-2021) after postdoctoral work at Salerno. Her research focuses on witchcraft, inquisition practices, religious migrations, and historiographical debates in Early Modern Europe. Her scholarship explores the demonological discourse through works like Charles V (2013) and co-edited volumes on the Roman Inquisition. She has contributed to international research projects including COST Action PIMo (2019-2023) on Mediterranean displacements and PRIN initiatives on Renaissance philosophy. Recent publications analyze transnational religious refugees ( Religious Refugees in the Early Modern World , 2023), gender in exile (2024), and witchcraft's intellectual legacy . Her teaching includes Modern History and Migration History courses, with exam texts emphasizing primary sources and critical historiography. Scientific Awards : Anna Maria Battista Fellowship Fondazione Luigi Firpo Fellow (2000) University of Rome Research Fellow (2001-2003)
Andrea Santilli is a Research Scientist at Nous Research and holds a PhD in Computer Science from GLADIA at Sapienza University of Rome. His research focuses on large language models (LLMs), robustness, reliability, and multimodal learning. He previously worked at Apple MLR, Hugging Face’s BigScience, and Pi School. He earned his MSc and BSc in Computer Science from Tor Vergata University and Sapienza. Education: PhD in Computer Science, Sapienza University of Rome (2024) MSc in Computer Science, University of Roma Tor Vergata (2020) BSc in Computer Science, University of Roma Tor Vergata (2018) Research Interests: Santilli’s work spans LLM robustness , mechanistic interpretability , multimodal neural databases , and instruction-tuning . He introduced Parallel Jacobi Decoding and contributed to projects like BLOOM, Camoscio, and Fauno. His research bridges syntax-aware NLP, privacy-preserving LLMs, and cross-modal alignment. Publications: His work includes advancements in 3D-text latent space alignment (CVPR 2025), evolutionary merging (ICML 2025), and efficient decoding (ACL 2023). Over 15+ peer-reviewed papers span venues like ACL, CVPR, and ICLR. Awards: Received the Emanuele Pianta Award for his MSc thesis on continual language learning with syntax-based episodic memory. Grants & Projects: Winner of ‘Machine Learning Algorithms for Translation’ grant (2022), developing Parallel Decoding Co-PI for ‘Multimodal AI for 3D Analysis’ (2021) with Ecole Polytechnique Labs & Teams: Active in GLADIA (Sapienza), Apple MLR, and Hugging Face’s BigScience initiative. Core contributor to open-source projects like PromptSource and BLOOM.
