People

Mattia Barbaresi is a PhD student at the Computer Science and Engineering Department (DISI) of the University of Bologna. His main research activities concern Artificial Intelligence and Creativity.

Matteo Casari is Associate Professor at the Department of the Arts of the University of Bologna, where he teaches Theatres in Asia and Performing Arts Management and Economy. His research is mainly devoted to Asian theatrical traditions, particularly in Japan where he conducted some fieldworks. He is the author of various publications including monographs, curatorships and essay. He has participated in numerous conferences in Italy and abroad.

Allegra De Filippo gained her PhD in Computer Science in 2020 and is currently a post-doc researcher at DISI, University of Bologna.

Her research interests are focused on decision support systems, stochastic optimization and method for integrated offline/online optimization under uncertainty in complex systems.

She has published papers in international conferences and journals in the field of Artificial Intelligence, and she collaborated with research groups, universities and companies.

Full Professor at the University of Bologna since 1994, Paola Mello conducts her research in Artificial Intelligence. In particular, her research interests, both practical and theoretical, cover knowledge representation, computational logic and logic languages, multi-agent and decision support systems , monitoring and verification, with applications in medicine, web services configuration, business processes management. She is involved in national and international research projects and is the author of numerous publications in prestigious conferences and journals.

Michela Milano is Full Professor of Computer Science at DISI – University of Bologna and Head of the Alma Mater Research Institute for Human-centered Artificial Intelligence (ALMA-AI). She is Deputy President of the European Association of Artificial Intelligence (EurAI). Her research interests cover theoretical and practical aspects of constraint reasoning, optimization and their integration with machine learning. Application areas include planning and scheduling, computational sustainability, embedded system design, energy systems and smart cities. Michela Milano is the author of over 140 papers in international conferences and journals. She coordinated many European, Italian and regional projects and she is responsible for collaborations with industries.

Cristiana Natali teaches Cultural Anthropology, Anthropology of South Asia and Methodologies of Ethnographic Research at the University of Bologna. She has carried out fieldwork in the Tamil guerrilla territories in Sri Lanka and in the Tamil Diaspora. In particular, she works on the anthropology of funerary rituals and of dance. She is the Representative for Disability Issues for the Department of History and Cultures.

Enrico Pitozzi teaches at the University of Bologna. His studies in the field of performing arts concern the relationship between the body and technology in the composition of movement (biofeedback). He is a member of the «MeLa research lab» of IUAV University of Venice and collaborates with «Sensory Studies» of Concordia University (Canada) and the project «Poéticas Tecnològicas» directed by Ivani Santana at the Universidade Federal de Bahia (Brasile). He is the author of numerous international contributions on the relationship between body, perception and technologies in the performing arts.

Riccardo Proietti obtained his Master's degree in Cognitive Psychology in 2019. He is currently enrolled as a PhD student at the University of Bologna at BRACCO (Body Representation and ACtion COgnition) Lab. at the department of psychology under the supervision of professor Tessari. He is conducting research on the application of Bayesian modeling for embodied cognition and the visual dorsal sub-pathways for action. within the project “Performing Robot”, he is focusing on the collection of kinematic data and the implementation of AI models for action imitation.

Andrea Roli is Assistant Professor at the Università di Bologna. His research areas are Artificial Intelligence and Complex Systems, with focus on biological models, biorobotics and collective intelligence. His main current research activities are gene regulation models for robot control and information theory techniques for the analysis of complex systems dynamics. He teaches courses in computer science basics, artificial intelligence and complex systems.

Alessia Tessari has a Master degree in Experimental Psychology at the University of Padova and a Ph.D. in Cognitive Neuroscience at S.I.S.S.A./I.S.A.S. (International School for Advanced Studies). She is now an Associate Professor at the University of Bologna. Her research mainly focuses on motor learning, action planning and execution and body representation at both cognitive and neural levels in either healthy and brain-damaged individuals. She also has an interest in evaluating the cognitive aspects involved in the interaction with an ICT device, the cognitive/emotional aspects in human-robot interaction and the processes of embodiment (e.g. prosthesis).

Cinzia Toscano has a PhD in Visual, Performing and Media Arts (University of Bologna). During her doctoral research she spent a period of study in Japan in collaboration with the Seinendan Theater Company directed by Hirata Oriza. She is interested in contemporary Japanese Theatre, Theatre and Robotics and Puppet Theatre. On these topics, in addition to several essays, she published Theatre of Robots. The mechanics of emotions in the Robot-Human Theatre by Hirata Oriza (CLUEB) in 2019.