Group Members
Director
Professor Alessandro Farinelli, Ph.D.
Personal Website
Prof. Alessandro Farinelli, is Full Professor and head of the Computer Science Department at University of Verona. His research interests focus on developing novel methodologies for Artificial Intelligence systems applied to robotics and cyber physical systems. In particular, he focuses on multi-agent coordination, decentralized optimization, reinforcement learning and data analysis for cyber-phisical systems. Alessandro Farinelli was principal investigator for several national and international research projects in the broad area of Artificial Intelligence. His research contributions target mainly international journals in the area of Artificial Intelligence (e.g., Artificial Intelligence journal and Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research) and Autonomous Robotic Systems (Autonomous Robots and Robotics and Autonomous Systems). The main scientific conferences he contributes to (both as organizer and speaker) include the International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems (AAMAS), the International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI) and the International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS).
Faculty
Alberto Castellini, Ph.D.
Personal Website
Alberto Castellini is an Associate Professor at the Computer Science department of the University of Verona. His research interests focus on the development of Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and Data Analysis techniques, with applications on intelligent systems of various kinds, such as, cyber-physical systems, robotic systems, smart grids and smart buildings. The main methodologies he works on are predictive models for multivariate time series, methods for planning under uncertainty, reinforcement learning, regression and clustering techniques, interpretability of predictive models, situation assessment and anomaly detection.
Daniele Meli, Ph.D.
Personal Website
Daniele Meli is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Computer Science. He received his Master’s degree in Automation Engineering from Politecnico di Bari, IT, in 2017, and his PhD in Computer Science at University of Verona in 2021. He is currently a research fellow and assistant professor in Artificial intelligence at University of Verona. His research is mainly focused on robotics and artificial intelligence, specifically on explainable and trustworthy AI, inductive logic programming and merging symbolic and probabilistic AI.
Research Fellow
Francesco Trotti
Personal Website
Francesco Trotti is a post-doctoral researcher in Computer Science at the University of Verona. His research focuses on developing control techniques that integrate nonlinear control strategies with online reinforcement learning model-based algorithms while considering model and/or environment uncertainties. He also focuses on designing control strategies for multi-agent systems, particularly emphasizing the collaboration and coordination aspects of multi-agents. The possible application ranges from designing controllers for manned or unmanned fixed-wing sub supersonic vehicles to controlling robotic manipulators or mobile robots.
Ph.D. Students
Celeste Veronese
Personal Website
is a PhD student at the University of Verona, supervised by Prof. Alessandro Farinelli and Daniele Meli. Her current research focuses on the integration of symbolic, logic-based reasoning and Reinforcement Learning to improve the efficiency, interpretability, and generalization of AI systems, particularly in complex decision-making environments.
Davide Villaboni
Personal Website
is a PhD student at the University of Verona, supervised by Prof. Alessandro Farinelli and Alberto Castellini. His current research focuses on enhancing forecast prediction through offline reinforcement learning and transformers.
Alumni
| - Luca Marzari. Thesis title: "Advanced Neural Networks Verification for Safe and Explainable Intelligent Systems". (Defended in 2026). Luca Marzari is a research fellow at TU Wien (updated in 2026). |
| - Maddelena Zuccotto. Thesis title: "Learning in Monte Carlo Tree Search Planning". (PhD cycle XXXV). |
| - Davide Corsi. Thesis title: "Safe Deep Reinforcement Learning: Enhancing the Reliability of Intelligent Systems". (PhD cycle XXXV). Davide Corsi is a Postdoctoral Associate at University of California Irvine (updated in 2024). |
| - Adrià Fenoy. Thesis title: "Combining Optimization and Machine Learning for the Formation of Collectives". (PhD cycle XXXV). Adrià Fenoy is an AI engineer at MeteoSim (updated in 2024) |
| - Giulio Mazzi. Thesis title: "Rule-Based Policy Interpretation and Shielding for Partially Observable Monte Carlo Planning" (PhD cycle XXXIV). |
| - Enrico Marchesini. Thesis title: "Enhancing Exploration and Safety in Deep Reinforcement Learning". (PhD cycle XXXIV). Enrico Marchesini is a Postdoctoral Associate at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) (updated in 2024). |
| - Riccardo Sartea. Thesis title: "Active Malware Analysis based on reinforcement learning techniques". (PhD cycle XXXII). Riccardo Sartea is Data Scientist at Amazon Web Services (AWS) (updated in 2024). |
| - Lorenzo Bottarelli. Thesis Title: "Optimizing Information Gathering for Environmental Monitoring Applications". (PhD Cycle XXXI). Lorenzo Bottarelli is head of Machine Learning at Ignitia AB (updated in 2024). |
| - Masoume M. Raeissi. Thesis Title: "Modeling Supervisory Control in Multi-Robot Applications". (PhD cycle XXX). Masoume Raeissi is Research Associate (AI) at Wageningen University & Research (updated in 2024) |
| - Filippo Bistaffa. Thesis Title: "Constraint Optimisation Techniques for Real-World Applications". (PhD Cycle XXVIII). Filippo Bistaffa is tenured researcher at IIIA-CSIC (updated in 2024) |
