Rosalind Picard
DirectorAffective Computing Research Group
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
RESEARCH DAY
IN MEMORY OF UMBERTO VERONESI
V EDITION
COMPUTER SCIENCE
FOR SAFETY, WELLBEING,
AND SUSTAINABLE GROWTH
The Prize
€ 1.000.000
The Topic
Computer Science
The Jury
15 top scientists
Nominations
International Applications
ERICA PICCOTTI, Cello
LEONARDO PIERDOMENICO, Piano
ATTILIO FONTANA, President of Regione Lombardia
PAOLO VERONESI, President of Fondazione Veronesi
FABRIZIO SALA, Councilor for Education, University, Research, Innovation and Simplification of Regione Lombardia
AMALIA ERCOLI-FINZI, Honorary Professor of the Politecnico of Milan
MARCO CAMISANI CALZOLARI, Professor of Digital Communication, Science Communicator
Awarding of the winners of the "Lombardia è Ricerca" prize for students
ALESSANDRO SIANI, Actor
GERRY SCOTTI, Ambassador for the Research of Regione Lombardia
THE WINNER
ROSALIND PICARD
Professor of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Media Lab
At the awards ceremony will be present
HAMID REZA KARIMI
Vice-President of the jury
LUCIANO FONTANA
Director of Corriere della Sera
With the contribution of
ALESSIA VENTURA
5 Information and Communication Technologies
2 Engineering
2 Biomedical Research
2 Psychology & Cognitive Sciences
1 Clinical Medicine, 1 Physics
1 Public Health and Health Services
1 Economics and Business
Barbara Caputo is Full Professor at the Politecnico of Torino, where she leads the Visual and Multimodal Applied Learning (VANDAL) Laboratory, and Principal Investigator at the Italian Institute of Technology (IIT), where she coordinates the newly founded IIT Division on Artificial Intelligence. She received her PhD in computer science from the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Stockholm, Sweden, in 2005. From 2007 to 2013 she was Senior Researcher at the Idiap Research Institute, Switzerland, where she funded and guided the Artificial Cognitive Systems group. In 2013 she received a MIUR Professorship, and moved to the Sapienza Rome University as associate professor. Her main research interest is to develop algorithms for learning, recognition and categorization of visual and multimodal patterns for artificial autonomous systems. These features are crucial to enable robots to represent and understand their surroundings, to learn and reason about it, and ultimately to equip them with cognitive capabilities. Her research is sponsored by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF), the Italian Ministry for Education, University and Research (MIUR), the European Commission (EC), nVIDIA and the European Research Council (ERC). In 2014, she was awarded an ERC Starting Grant for the project ‘RoboExNovo’, that is building the theory and algorithms necessary to teach robots how to learn autonomously from the Web.
She is an Italian electrical and computer engineer, and professor of computer architecture and computer vision in the Enzo Ferrari Department of Engineering at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia (UNIMORE) in Italy. Cucchiara's work focuses on artificial intelligence, specifically deep network technologies and computer vision to human behavior understanding (HBU). She is the director of the AImage Lab at UNIMORE and is director of the Artificial Intelligence Research and Innovation Center (AIRI) as well as the ELLIS (European Labs of Learning and Intelligent Systems) Unit at Modena. She was founder and director from 2018 to 2021 of the Italian National Lab of Artificial Intelligence and intelligent systems of CINI. Cucchiara was also president of the CVPL GIRPR the Italian Association of Computer Vision, Machine Learning and Pattern Recognition from 2016 to 2018.
Richard J. Davidson received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in Psychology and has been at Wisconsin since 1984. He has published more than 400 articles, numerous chapters and reviews and edited 14 books. He is the author (with Sharon Begley) of “The Emotional Life of Your Brain” published by Penguin in 2012. He is co-author with Daniel Goleman of “Altered Traits: Science Reveals How Meditation Changes Your Mind, Brain, and Body”, published by Penguin Books in 2017.
He is the recipient of numerous awards for his research including a National Institute of Mental Health Research Scientist Award, a MERIT Award from NIMH, an Established Investigator Award from the National Alliance for Research in Schizophrenia and Affective Disorders (NARSAD), a Distinguished Investigator Award from NARSAD, the William James Fellow Award from the American Psychological Society, and the Hilldale Award from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He was the year 2000 recipient of the most distinguished award for science given by the American Psychological Association –the Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award. He was the Founding Co-Editor of the new American Psychological Association journal EMOTION and is Past-President of the Society for Research in Psychopathology and of the Society for Psychophysiological Research.
In 2003 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and in 2004 elected to the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters. Named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time Magazine in 2006. In 2006 awarded the first Mani Bhaumik Award by UCLA for advancing the understanding of the brain and conscious mind in healing. Madison Magazine named him Person of the Year in 2007. In 2008, he founded the Center for Healthy Minds, a research center dedicated to the study of positive qualities, such as kindness and compassion. In 2011 given the Paul D. MacLean Award for Outstanding Neuroscience Research in Psychosomatic Medicine. Serves on the Scientific Advisory Board at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig from 2011-2020 and was Chair of the Psychology section of the American Association for the Advancement of Science from 2011-2013. In 2013 received the NYU College of Arts and Science Alumni Achievement Award. He is a current member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Mental Health. From 1992-2017, he was a member of the Mind and Life Institute’s Board of Directors. In 2017 elected to the National Academy of Medicine, the premier authority dedicated to the health and medical sciences. In 2018, appointed to the Governing Board of UNESCO’s Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Education for Peace and Sustainable Development (MGIEP).
Aldo Di Carlo graduated in physics (cum laude) at the University of Rome "La Sapienza", obtained the Ph.D. at the Physics Department of the Technical University of Munich (Germany). In 1996 he became research assistant at the Department of Electronic Engineering of the University of Rome "Tor Vergata" and, on 2001, Associated professor. Since December 2012 he is Full Professor of Opto and Nanoelectronics in the same department. In September 2019 he was appointed as Director of the Institute of Structure of Matter of the National Research council (CNR-ISM). His research focuses on the design, fabrication and characterization of electronic and optoelectronic devices, their analysis and their optimization. An important aspect of the research concerns the simulation of micro and nanoelectronic devices. The development of the non-equilibrium theory for the microscopic description of the transport process in nanostructured devices and its multiscale implementation has been the subject of invited talks at international conferences and University seminars. In recent years his research was particularly focused on the development of hybrid organic-inorganic solar cells, in particular Dye Solar Cells and Perovskite Solar Cells, and on scaling-up of these technologies for industrial applications. Di Carlo founded and directed (2007-2019) the Center for Hybrid and Organic Solar Cells (CHOSE) which involve more than 50 researchers. CHOSE has generated 6 spin-off company and a public/private consortium for-industrialization of DSC cells.
Aldo Di Carlo is the European coordinator of the H2020 project CITYSOLAR on the development of Tandem cells perovskite/organics for building integration. He was European Coordinator of the FP7 Project ULTRADSSC on time-resolved characterization of DSSC solar cells and of the EU FP7 project OPTHER on THz Amplifiers. He is/was node coordinator of 1 Horizon Europe project (DIAMOND on Carbon/perovskite solar cells), 8 H2020 projects (IMPRESSIVE on tandem cell perovskite/DSSC, MOSTOPHOS on simulation of organic LEDs, CHEOPS on perovskite solar cells, GRAPHENE FLAGSHIP CORE 2 and Core 3 on perovskite/graphene solar cells, CHIPSCOPE on GaN Nanowire for superesolution microscopes, MAESTRO for perovskite optoelectronics and ESPRESSO for the fabrication of large area Perovskite solar modules,). He was node coordinator of several national and european research projects, including five FP7 STREP projects (NEWLED on the development of GaN-LEDs, GRAPHENE Flagship, SMASH on Gan Leds and HYMEC on organic memories, CHEETAH fo fotovoltaics), three European Marie Curie Project (DESTINY of organic photovoltaic cells, CLERMONT and CLERMONT II on Microcavities), a European FP6 STREP Project (STIMSCAT on Polariton Lasers). He was coordinating also several National projects (PRIN, MADESS, PF etc.) and it is the regional coordinator of the ISIS@MACH infrastructure and STESY Infrastructure.
Di Carlo is author/coauthor of more than 500 scientific publications in international journals (h-factor = 64, Citations = 17248, SCOPUS), 13 international patents, several review papers and books chapters and coauthor of two books (in Italian language) "Appunti di Optoelettronica: I materiali semiconduttori" e "Appunti di Optoelettronica: fibre ottiche e componenti a semiconduttore" (Aracne ed.).
He is professor of economics at the Institute of Economics. He also serves as co-director of the ‘Industrial Policy’ and ‘Intellectual Property Rights’ task forces at the Initiative for Policy Dialogue at Columbia University. Additionally, Professor Dosi is a continental Europe editor of the journal Industrial and Corporate Change. He is included in the ISI Highly Cited Research list, denoting those who made fundamental contributions to the advancement of science and technology, and is a corresponding member of the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, the first academy of sciences in Italy.
In 2016, he received the Wiley TIM Distinguished Scholar Award by the Technology and Innovation Management Division of the American Academy of Management.
A selection of his works has been published in two volumes: Innovation, Organization and Economic Dynamics. Selected Essays (2000), and Economic Organization, Industrial Dynamics and Development: Selected Essays (2012) both published by Edward Elgar.
Robert W. Heath Jr. received the Ph.D. in EE from Stanford University. He is a Distinguished Professor at North Carolina State University. From 2002-2020 he was with The University of Texas at Austin, most recently as Cockrell Family Regents Chair in Engineering and Director of UT SAVES. He is also the President and CEO of MIMO Wireless Inc and Chief Innovation Officer at Kuma Signals LLC. Prof. Heath is a recipient of several awards including the 2012 Signal Processing Magazine Best Paper award, a 2013 Signal Processing Society best paper award, the 2014 EURASIP Journal on Advances in Signal Processing best paper award, and the 2014 Journal of Communications and Networks best paper award, the 2016 IEEE Communications Society Fred W. Ellersick Prize, the 2016 IEEE Communications Society and Information Theory Society Joint Paper Award, 2017 IEEE Marconi Prize Paper Award, the 2017 EURASIP Technical Achievement Award, the 2019 IEEE Communications Society Stephen O. Rice Prize, and the 2019 IEEE Kiyo Tomiyasu Award. He co-authored “Millimeter Wave Wireless Communications” (Prentice Hall in 2014) and “Foundations of MIMO Communications” (Cambridge 2019). He is currently EIC of IEEE Signal Processing Magazine. He will be a member-at-large on the IEEE Communications Society Board-of-Governors (2020-2022) and is a past member-at-large on the IEEE Signal Processing Society Board-of-Governors (2016-2018). He is a licensed Amateur Radio Operator, a registered Professional Engineer in Texas, a Private Pilot, a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors, and a Fellow of the IEEE.
He is a University Distinguished Professor at Michigan State University where he conducts research in pattern recognition, machine learning, computer vision, and biometrics recognition. He was a member of the United States Defense Science Board and Forensics Science Standards Board. He has been awarded Guggenheim, Humboldt and Fulbright fellowships and King-Sun Fu Prize. For advancing pattern recognition and biometrics, Jain was awarded Doctor Honoris Causa by Universidad Autónoma de Madrid and Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. He was Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence and is a Fellow of ACM, IEEE, AAAS, and SPIE. Jain has been assigned 8 U.S. and Korean patents and is active in technology transfer for which he was elected to the National Academy of Inventors. Jain is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering (NAE), foreign member of the Indian National Academy of Engineering (INAE), a member of The World Academy of Science (TWAS) and a foreign member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS).
Hamid Reza Karimi received the B.Sc. (First Hons.) degree in power systems from the Sharif University of Technology, Tehran, Iran, in 1998, and the M.Sc. and Ph.D. (First Hons.) degrees in control systems engineering from the University of Tehran, Tehran, in 2001 and 2005, respectively. Since 2016, he has been an associate professor of Applied Mechanics with the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Politecnico di Milano, Milan, Italy. His current research interests include control systems and mechatronics with applications to automotive control systems, vibration systems, robotics and wind energy.
Prof. Karimi is a Member of Academia Europa (MAE), Distinguished Fellow of the International Institute of Acoustics and Vibration (IIAV), Fellow of The International Society for Condition Monitoring (ISCM), Member of Agder Academy of Science and Letters and also a member of the IFAC Technical Committee on Mechatronic Systems, the IFAC Technical Committee on Robust Control, and the IFAC Technical Committee on Automotive Control. He is serving as Chief Editor, Subject Editor, Technical Editor or Associate Editor for some International Journals and Book Series Editor for Springer, CRC Press and Elsevier.
Prof. Karimi has been awarded as the 2016-2021 Web of Science Highly Cited Researcher in Engineering, the 2020 IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems Guillemin-Cauer Best Paper Award, August-Wilhelm-Scheer Visiting Professorship Award, JSPS (Japan Society for the Promotion of Science) Research Award, and Alexander-von-Humboldt-Stiftung research Award, for instance. He has also participated as General Chair, keynote/plenary speaker, distinguished speaker or program chair for several international conferences in the areas of Control Systems, Robotics and Mechatronics.
Dr. Karin received his BSc in Biology from Tel Aviv University in 1975 and his Ph.D. in Molecular Biology from the University of California Los Angeles in 1979. He is currently a Distinguished Professor of Pharmacology and Pathology at the University of California San Diego School of Medicine, where he has been on the faculty since 1986. Dr. Karin has received numerous awards, including the Endocrine Society Oppenheimer Award for Excellence in 1990, American Cancer Society Research Professorship in 1999, C.E.R.I.E.S. Research Award for Physiology or Biology of the Skin in 2000, Harvey Prize in Human Health in 2011, Brupbacher Prize in Cancer Research in 2013, William B. Coley Award for Distinguished Research in Basic and Tumor Immunology in 2013, and an honorary Doctor of Medicine from the Technical University of Munich. He was a cofounder of Signal Pharmaceutical, which has become a part of Celgene, Inc. Dr. Karin had also served as a member of the National Advisory Council for Environmental Health Sciences. Dr. Karin was elected as a member of the US National Academy of Sciences in 2005, the National Academy of Medicine in 2011 and as an associate member of the European Molecular Biology Association in 2007. He became a fellow of the American Association for Cancer Research Academy in 2017. Dr. Karin’s current activity primarily focuses on understanding the relationship between inflammation, cancer, and metabolic disease as well as the signaling mechanisms used by receptors involved in inflammation and innate immunity. In addition to discovering some of the most important stress- and inflammation-responsive signal transduction pathways and establishing molecular links between obesity, inflammation and cancer, Dr. Karin’s work has revealed new targets for cancer prevention and therapy as well as for the treatment of non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) and other metabolic diseases.
She is currently a Distinguished Professor of Alma Mater at the University of Bologna where she has been on the faculty since 1986. She was visiting professor in different universities since 1984 ( Department of Psychology, University of Toronto, Canada, Centre for Cognitive Neuroscience”, Cornell University, NY, USA, Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience”, University College of London, UK). She funded and guided for 20 years the Centre of Cognitive Neuroscience and the International PhD Program in Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Bologna. She was President of the Italian Neuropsychological Society (SINP). She served in the Editorial Board as Associate Editor of “Neuropsychologia” , “Frontiers in Neuroscience: Integrative Neuroscience ” and “Annals of New York Accademy of Science”. She was Panel Member in different SH4 panels of the ERC-ADG calls.
Research interests: cognitive neuroscience, neuropsychology of attention and multisensory integration. Spatial representation in perception and action. Rehabilitation of neuropsychological deficits.
She is author/coauthor of more than 200 scientific publications in international journals (h-factor = 68, Citations = 14.590), several review papers and books chapters and coauthor of two books (in Italian language).
Arianna Menciassi was born in Pisa, Italy, in 1971. She graduated in Physics at the Pisa University (1995), she obtained the PhD (1999) at Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna (SSSA, Pisa, Italy) and she was visiting professor in different universities in France since 2014 (Pierre and Marie Curie, in Paris, Besancon University, in Besancon). She is Full Professor of Biomedical Robotics at SSSA and team leader of the “Surgical Robotics & Allied Technologies” Area at The BioRobotics Institute. She is the Coordinator of the PhD in Biorobotics since 2018, and she was appointed in 2019 as Vice-Rector of the Scuola Sant'Anna.
Her main research interests involve surgical robotics, microrobotics for biomedical applications, biomechatronic artificial organs, smart and soft solutions for biomedical devices. She pays a special attention to the combination between traditional robotics, targeted therapy and wireless solution for therapy (e.g. ultrasound- and magnetic-based).
She served in the Editorial Board of the IEEE-ASME Trans. on Mechatronics and she has been Topic Editor of the International Journal of Advanced Robotic Systems (2013-2020). In 2018 she has been appointed as Editor of APL Bioengineering and of the IEEE Transactions on Medical Robotics and Bionics. She is Associate Editor for Soft Robotics and she serves as Associate Editor of the IEEE Trans. on Robotics from Jan. 2021.
She is Co-Chair of the IEEE Technical Committee on Surgical Robotics. She is serving in the Steering Committee of iSMIT.
She received the Well-tech Award (Milan, Italy) for her researches on endoscopic capsules, and she was awarded by the Tuscany Region with the Gonfalone D’Argento, as one of the best 10 young talents of the region. Recently, she has been awarded with the KUKA Innovation Award, for her activities on robotic assisted focused ultrasound.
My current research activities are focused on advances in several fields of rapid technology development, notably wireless networks and energy systems, and on the fundamentals underlying them, including information theory, machine learning and network science.
The dramatic increase in demand for new capacity and higher performance has been a major issue in the design and deployment of contemporary wireless networks. The development of these capabilities is severely limited by the scarcity of two of the principal resources in wireless networks: energy and bandwidth. Emerging generations of wireless standards and applications such as Internet of Things (IoT) are addressing these issues through the use of techniques such as cooperative communications, spectrum sharing, energy harvesting, cloud processing and densification of infrastructure. One focus of our recent work has addressed the fundamental limits of such techniques through information theoretic and related analyses of high-reliability and low-latency communications. Another focus has been on addressing the fundamental ability of the physics of the radio channel to provide security in data transmission, and the development of codes and other methods to exploit this capability. A further issue that we are exploring is the use of wireless networks as platforms for machine learning, through the development of federated and decentralized learning algorithms and the study of their interactions with the wireless medium.
Our work in energy systems has focused on smart grid, which has emerged as a key technology for improving the efficiency, efficacy and security of the distribution and consumption of electric power, and particularly for the integration of renewable energy sources such as wind and solar power into the electricity grid. Our work in this area has focused on the use of advanced methods from communications and information technology to address several issues arising in this context, including the detection and amelioration of bad data and physical attacks on the grid, the study of privacy issues for both operators and consumers, the characterization of grid resilience through topological data analysis, the development of distributed algorithms for state estimation and control of the grid, and the use of game theory and prospect theory to develop an understanding of the behavior of grid participants in activities such peer-to-peer energy trading.
We are also working currently on improved modeling of the spread of COVID-19, and the development of optimal and robust control mechanisms for this spread.
Since July 1st 2018 Professor Remuzzi has taken on the role of Director of the the Mario Negri Institute for Pharmacological Research.
Prof. Giuseppe Remuzzi was born in Bergamo, Italy in 1949. Upon completion of his medical training at the University of Pavia in 1974, he received specialty training in Hematology and Nephrology at the University of Milan. Since 1975, he has pursued his academic career at the Bergamo hospital, where he was appointed Professor of Nephrology and Director of both the Department of Immunology and Clinical Transplantation (1996) and the Department of Medicine in 2011. Since 1999, he is Director of the Division of Nephrology and Dialysis of the same hospital. Since 1984 he also coordinates the Negri Bergamo Laboratories of the “Mario Negri” Institute for Pharmacological Research and the affiliated Clinical Research Center for Rare Diseases “Aldo e Cele Daccò” in Ranica (BG), a group of basic scientists, physiologists, pharmacologists, molecular and cellular biologists, pathologists and clinicians devoted to the study of human renal diseases and their corresponding animal models from the perspective of pathophysiology and therapeutic intervention. He touched major advances in many areas of nephrology.
For example, his studies have led to new insights into many disorders, including the interactions between platelets and endothelium, pathophysiology of glomerular diseases and the factors that influence the progressive loss of kidney function. Work focused on improving the outlook for patients with end stage renal disease. Giuseppe Remuzzi pays tribute to the work of pioneers such as Barry Brenner, who delved deep into the processes behind glomerular function and their possible reversibility. Early work on the use of angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors to slow the decline of glomerular filtration rates proved dialysis was avoidable, not inevitable. Studies on immunologic mechanisms that influence the survival of transplanted organs, understanding of immunologic tolerance in the disorders that are linked to autoimmunity and finally, genetic diseases of the kidney have also been areas of investigation. Concerned by kidney donation shortages and deploring the current practice of discarding suboptimal donor kidneys, his team has shown that transplanting such kidneys in pairs is feasible and have set up an international effort to validate this approach. Giuseppe Remuzzi is investigating the kidney's ability to regenerate itself.
Prof. Remuzzi has authored and co-authored more than 1500 scientific articles, reviews and monographs and 19 books and regularly collaborate through the preparation of scientific articles with the Italian national newspaper “Corriere della Sera”.
David Stuckler is a Full Professor of Policy Analysis and Public Management at Bocconi University in Milan and an Intellectual Forum Senior Research Associate at Jesus College, Cambridge.
Before, he has been a Professor of Political Economy and Sociology and a Senior Research Leader at Oxford University. He has published over one hundred peer-reviewed scientific articles in major journals on the subjects of economics and global health, and his work has featured on the cover of The New York Times and The Economist, as well as on BBC, NPR, and CNN, among others. He has written the books The Body Economic and Sick Societies.
Daniela Toniolo graduated in Biological Sciences from the University of Milan. After some experiences abroad (Great Britain, United States and Switzerland) she returned to Italy as a CNR researcher at the Institute of Genetics and Biophysics in Naples. In 2001 she moved to the San Raffaele Scientific Institute in Milan. Daniela Toniolo currently heads the Genetics Unit of Common Diseases at the Genetics and Cell Biology Division at the San Raffaele Scientific Institute in Milan. Her research has covered monogenic diseases linked to the X chromosome for many years. Today her group is involved in studying the genetic variants responsible for ovarian failure.
The Prize awards a fundamental discovery, research, or invention with long-lived effects in the broad field of "Computer Science for Safety, Wellbeing, and Sustainable Growth" within the strategic Area "Improving the quality of people's lives with a positive impact on the economic and social level."
The Prize recognizes the commitment and talent of people who - through their research, discoveries and inventions - made significant contributions in the advancement of scientific and technological knowledge of great innovative value, scientific impact, and economic/social influence.