Biography

I’m Lecturer (Asst. Prof.) in Machine Learning at the University College London (UCL) in the SpaceTimeLab led by Prof. Tao Cheng. Previously, I was Postdoc also at UCL in the Web Intelligence Group led by Prof. Emine Yilmaz. My research broadly focuses on Information Retrieval, Natural Language Processing, and Machine Learning. I received my Ph.D. in Computer Science from the TU Wien (Austria) with the title: “On Biases in Information Retrieval Models and Evaluation” under the supervision of Prof. Allan Hanbury and Dr. Mihai Lupu. I’ve perfected my studies at the: National Institute of Standard and Technologies (NIST) in Gaithersburg, Microsoft Research Cambridge, University of Glasgow, University of Amsterdam, and National Institute of Informatics (NII) in Tokyo.

Education & Training

  • Ph.D. 2014-2018

    Ph.D. in Computer Science

    TU Wien

  • MSc. 2010-2012

    Master in Computer Engineering

    University of Bologna

  • BSc. 2007-2010

    Bachelor in Computer Engineering

    University of Catania

  • H.S. 2002-2007

    Computer Expert

    ITIS ``Ettore Majorana`` of Piazza Armerina

Work Experience

  • Present2018

    Postdoctoral Research Associate

    University College London (UCL)

  • 20182014

    Project Assistant

    TU Wien

  • 08/201706/2017

    Visiting Researcher

    Microsoft Research Cambridge UK

  • 07/201705/2017

    Visiting Researcher

    National Institute of Standard & Technology

  • 09/201607/2016

    Research Intern

    Microsoft Research Cambridge UK

  • 4/20164/2016

    Visiting Researcher

    University of Amsterdam

  • 2/20162/2016

    Visiting Researcher

    University of Glasgow

  • 5/20152/2015

    Research Intern

    National Institute of Informatics (Tokyo)

  • 20142013

    Computer Engineer

    IKARUS Security Software GmbH

Grant & Awards

  • December 2017
    1st Place Microsoft One Week 2017 Hackathon Winner
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  • December 2016
    ACM SIGIR ambassador for the 50th anniversary of the ACM Turing Award
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  • April 2016
    Keystone STSM Grant (University of Amsterdam)
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    To visit Dr. Kanoulas Evangelos, active researchers in the Information Retrieval evaluation topic at the University of Amsterdam. Short term scientific mission granted by the COST Action IC1302 (Keystone).
  • February 2016
    ESF Exchange Grant (University of Glasgow)
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    To visit Dr. Leif Azzopardi's group, pioneers and active researchers on the retrievability topic at the University of Glasgow.

Conferences and Workshops Attended

SIGIR 2017
7-11 August 2017
Special Interest Group on Information Retrieval, Tokyo, Japan
ECIR 2017
9-13 April 2017
European Conference on Information Retrieval, Aberdeen, Scotland
SAC 2017
4-6 April 2017
Symposium On Applied Computing, Marrakech, Morocco
CIKM 2016
24-28 October 2016
Conference on Information and Knowledge Management, Indianapolis, Indiana (USA)
ICTIR 2016
13-16 September 2016
International Conference on the Theory of Information Retrieval at University of Delaware, Newark, Delaware (USA)
SIGIR 2016
17-21 July 2016
Special Interest Group on Information Retrieval at University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy
ECIR 2016
20-23 March 2016
European Conference on Information Retrieval at University of Padua, Padua, Italy
ICTIR 2015
27-30 September 2015
ACM SIGIR International Conference on the Theory of Information Retrieval, Northampton, Massachusetts (USA)
ESSIR 2015
31 August-4 September 2015
The 10th European Summer School in Information Retrieval, Thessaloniki, Greece
RUSSIR 2015
24-28 August 2015
The 9th Russian Summer School in Information Retrieval, Saint Petersburg, Russia
SIGIR 2015
9-13 August 2015
Special Interest Group on Information Retrieval at PUC Extension Center, Santiago, Chile
ECIR 2015
29 March-2 April 2015
European Conference on Information Retrieval at Vienna University of Technology, Vienna, Austria
QI 2015
17-18 February 2015
Workshop in Mathematics, Physics, and Information in Quantum Information Science at National Institute of Informatics, Tokyo, Japan
NTCIR 2014
9-12 December 2014
The 11th NTCIR Workshop on Evaluation of Information Access Technologies, Tokyo, Japan
IRFC 2014
10-12 November 2014
The Open Interdisciplinary MUMIA Conference / The IRF Conference, Copenhagen, Denmark
10th e-Science
20-24 October 2014
IEEE International Conference on e-Science, Guarujá, Brazil
CLEF 2014
15-18 September 2014
Conference and Labs of the Evaluation Forum, University of Sheffield, Great Britain
RUSSIR 2014
18-22 August 2014
The 8th Russian Summer School in Information Retrieval, Nizhny Novgorod, Russia
3rd MUMIA-TS
21-25 July 2014
3rd MUMIA Training School on Information Retrieval and Interactive Information Access, Heraklion, Crete - Greece
Workshop
4 June 2014
Workshop with Peter Murray-Rust and Michelle Brook: "Can we build an intelligent scientific reader?", IST Austria

Reviewing Activities

Journals

IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering (TKDE):

 2019

ACM Transaction on Information Systems (TOIS):

 2018

Elsevier Information Processing & Management (IPM):

 2018

ACM Journal of Data and Information Quality (JDIQ):

 2017

Conference/Workshop Programme Committees

EVIA’17  and ’19
 8th International Workshop on Evaluating Information Access
CIKM’17 and ’18
 26th, 27th ACM International Conference on Information and Knowledge Management
ECIR’16, ’17, ’18 and ’19
 38th, 39th, 40th, 41st European Conference on Information Retrieval
DSAA’16  3rd IEEE International Conference on Data Science and Advanced Analytics