Research

Research Areas

The following is a list of my research areas and research questions:

  • Cybersecurity and Privacy
    How to assess and protect user privacy when using smart and Internet of Things devices?
  • Software Performance Engineering and Cloud Computing
    How to minimize the cost for running cloud computing applications while guaranteeing an adequate level of quality?
  • Mobile Computing and Middleware
    How to share information among mobile devices without requiring coordination or an existing infrastructure?
  • Self-organization and Autonomic Computing
    How to make software adapt without requiring any human intervention?
  • Gamification
    How to use game design elements to improve software development practices?

Experiences and Visits

February 2017 – current

  • Associate Research Scientist
  • Institution: Northeastern University (MA, USA)
  • Research topics: privacy, security, Internet measurement, Internet of Things
  • Research projects: ReCon, BehavIoT, ProperData
  • Supervisor: Prof. David Choffnes

October 2020 – June 2021

  • Digital Lab Non-resident Fellow
  • Institution: Consumer Reports (NY, USA)
  • Research topics: smart speakers privacy
  • Supervisor: Cody Feng

December 2014 – December 2016

  • Marie Curie Postdoctoral Fellow
  • Institution: Imperial College London (UK)
  • Research topics: cloud computing, software performance engineering
  • Research projects: SPANDO (AESOP @ Department of Computing)
  • Supervisor: Giuliano Casale

September 2015

  • Visiting Researcher
  • Institution: Gran Sasso Science Institute (Italy)
  • Research topics: cloud computing, software performance engineering
  • Host: Catia Trubiani

August 2015

  • Visiting Researcher
  • Institution: College of William and Mary (USA)
  • Research topics: cloud computing, software performance engineering
  • Host: Prof. Evgenia Smirni

January 2013 – October 2014

  • Postdoctoral Fellow
  • Institution: Massachusetts Institute of Technology (USA)
  • Research topics: mobile peer to peer networks, distributed systems, cloud computing, gamification
  • Research projects: MobileP2P/ShAir (Information Ecology and Object-Based Media @ MIT Media Lab)
  • Supervisors: Henry Holtzman, V. Michael Bove, Yosuke Bando

January 2011 – January 2013

  • Research Assistant
  • Institution: Politecnico di Milano (Italy)
  • Research topics: autonomic computing, emergence, self-organization, cloud computing, middleware, formal modeling and analysis
  • Research projects: S-Cube, SMSCOM
  • Supervisors: Prof. Elisabetta Di Nitto, Prof. Raffaela Mirandola

October 2012

  • Visiting Researcher
  • Institution: Drexel University (USA)
  • Activity: Research collaboration
  • Title: Multi-service solutions for overlay reconfiguration and load-balancing in peer-to-peer volunteer computing networks
  • Supervisor: Prof. Peppo Valetto
  • Duration: 2 weeks
  • Research project: Awareness Initiative, MODAClouds

January 2008 – December 2010

  • Ph.D in Information Engineering
  • Institution: Politecnico di Milano (Italy)
  • Thesis title: Self-organizing Methods and Models for Software Development
  • Thesis advisor: Prof. Elisabetta Di Nitto
  • Research projects: CASCADAS, S-Cube, SMSCOM

October 2010 – December 2010

  • Research Internship at IBM Research&Development Lab at Haifa
  • Institution: IBM Research&Development Labs (Haifa)
  • Activity: adaptive Virtual Machine cloning in a cloud computing environment
  • Supervisors: Dr. David Breitgand, Amir Epstein
  • Duration: 3 months

November 2009

  • Visiting Ph.D. Student
  • Institution: University of Crete (Greece)
  • Activity: Minor Research Completion
  • Title: An Approach for Improving Business Process Management in Agile Service Networks
  • Supervisor: Prof. Christos Nikolaou
  • Duration: 2 weeks
  • Research project: S-Cube

June 2007 – December 2007

  • Research Assistant
  • Institution: Politecnico di Milano (Italy)
  • Role: collaboration in EU-FP6-CASCADAS project
  • Duration: 7 months
  • Research project: CASCADAS
  • Supervisors: Prof. Elisabetta Di Nitto, Prof. Raffaela Mirandola

Awards and Grants

Awards and prizes

  • Telekom Challenge by T-Labs €25k award (May 2021)
  • Community contribution award on the ACM Internet Measurement Conference (IMC 2019)
  • Amazon EC2 Research Credits for Research $5k award (July 2017)
  • Microsoft Azure Research Credits for Research $20k award (June 2017)
  • Best paper award on the IEEE International Conference on Cloud and Autonomic Computing (ICCAC 2015)

Grants and fellowships

  • Consumer Reports Digital Lab Fellowship, measuring and protecting the privacy of smart speakers’ users, granted by Consumer Reports, NY, USA
  • Marie Curie IEF Fellowship, supporting a post-doctoral position for project SPANDO (Self-organising Performance Prediction and Optimisation for Large-scale Software Systems) at the Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom, European Commission FP7-629982 grant
  • Toshiba Post-doctoral Fellowship, supporting a post-doctoral position at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA, granted by Toshiba Corporation Japan
  • Progetto Roberto Rocca Fellowship, supporting a post-doctoral position at the Mas- sachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA, granted by the MIT-Italy Program
  • Fellowship for research mobility, supporting a visit at Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA, USA, granted by Awareness Initiative, European Commission FP7 grant
  • Fellowship for research mobility, supporting a visit at Universitatea de Vest din Timisoara, Timisoara, Romania, granted by SPRERS (Strengthening the Participation of Romania at European R&D in Software Services) project, European Commission FP7-246839 grant
  • Fellowship for research mobility, supporting a visit at IBM Haifa Research Labs, Haifa, Israel, granted by S-Cube (Network of Excellence on Software Services and Systems Network) project, European Commission FP7-215483 grant
  • Fellowship for research mobility, supporting a visit at University of Crete, Heraklion, Greece, granted by S-Cube (Network of Excellence on Software Services and Systems Network) project, European Commission FP7-215483 grant
  • Ph.D fellowship, Politecnico di Milano, Milan, Italy, granted by S-Cube (Network of Excellence on Software Services and Systems Network) project, European Commission FP7-215483 grant

Service

 Conference Organization

  • Web Chair at the 17th ACM International Measurement Conference (IMC 2018)
  • Poster and Demo Chair at the 15th IEEE International Conference of Autonomic Computing (ICAC 2018)
  • Social and Web Chair at the 10th Joint Meeting of the European Software Engineering Conference and the ACM SIGSOFT Symposium on the Foundations of Software Engineering (ESEC/FSE 2015)
  • Poster Chair at the 7th International Conference on IEEE Self-Adaptive and Self-Organizing Systems (SASO 2013)

Program Committee Membership

  • ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security (CCS 2021)
  • IEEE International Conference on Self-Adaptive and Self-Organizing Systems (SASO 2013)
  • Workshop on Agents for Complex Systems (ACSys 2012), co-located with the 14th International Symposium on Symbolic and Numeric Algorithms for Scientific Computing (SYNASC 2012)
  • Workshop on Agents for Complex Systems (ACSys 2011), co-located with the 13th International Symposium on Symbolic and Numeric Algorithms for Scientific Computing (SYNASC 2011)

Reviewer Service

  • Future Generation Computer Systems Journal (FGCS), Elsevier Journal, 2020
  • 41nd IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy, 2020
  • 17th USENIX Symposium on Networked Systems Design and Implementation, 2020
  • Transactions on Cloud Computing (TCC), IEEE Journal, 2018
  • Future Generation Computer Systems Journal (FGCS), Elsevier Journal, 2018
  • 17th ACM International Measurement Conference (IMC 2017)
  • Journal of Software: Evolution and Process, Wiley Journal, 2017
  • Transactions on Modeling and Performance Evaluation of Computing Systems (TOMPECS), ACM Journal, 2016
  • Transactions on Autonomous and Adaptive Systems (TAAS), ACM Journal, 2016
  • Science of Computer Programming (SCP), Elsevier Journal, 2016
  • IEEE 14th International Conference on Cloud Computing and Communications (CLOUD 2016)
  • Transactions on Modeling and Performance Evaluation of Computing Systems (TOMPECS), ACM Journal, 2015
  • 7th ACM/SPEC International Conference on Performance Engineering (ICPE 2015)
  • 35th International Conference on Distributed Computing Systems (ICDCS 2015)
  • Internet Computing, IEEE Journal, 2014
  • Transactions on Autonomous and Adaptive Systems (TAAS), ACM Journal, 2013
  • 9th joint meeting of the European Software Engineering Conference and the ACM SIGSOFT Symposium on the Foundations of Software Engineering (ESEC/FSE 2013) – IEEE/ACM 27th International Conference on Automated Software Engineering (ASE 2012)
  • IEEE 19th International Conference on Web Services (ICWS 2012)
  • 24th International Conference on Advanced Information Systems Engineering (CAiSE 2012)
  • Adaptive and Reconfigurable Service-oriented and Component-based Applications and Architectures (AROSA 2012), co-located with the 22nd IEEE International Conference on Enabling Technologies: Infrastructures for Collaborative Enterprises (WETICE 2012)
  • Computer Networks (COMNET), Elsevier Journal, 2011
  • Journal on Systems and Software (JSS), Elsevier Journal, 2011
  • IEEE/ACM 26th International Conference on Automated Software Engineering (ASE 2011)
  • IEEE 18th International Conference on Web Services (ICWS 2011)
  • Adaptive and Reconfigurable Service-oriented and Component-based Applications and Architectures (AROSA 2011), co-located with the 21st IEEE International Conference on Enabling Technologies: Infrastructures for Collaborative Enterprises (WETICE 2011)
  • Workshop on Agents for Complex Systems (ACSys 2011), co-located with the 13th International Symposium on Symbolic and Numeric Algorithms for Scientific Computing (SYNASC 2011)
  • IEEE 17th International Conference on Web Services (ICWS 2010)
  • Future Generation Computer Systems Journal (FGCS), Elsevier Journal, 2009
  • 31st IEEE/ACM International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE 2009)
  • IEEE/ACM 24th International Conference on Automated Software Engineering (ASE 2009)