Hi! My name is Irene and I am a Computer Scientist with a passion for Research and Innovation.
I am an expert in Web and Data technologies, with a specialization in Semantic Web, Semantic Interoperability, Knowledge Graphs, Data Space and Data Fabric, Human acceptance of AI, Human Computation, Citizen Science, Human-in-the-loop Machine Learning and Data Analytics.
I am the Head of the Knowledge Technologies group, one of the 8 competence centers in Cefriel, the research, innovation and technology transfer center of Politecnico di Milano, where I lead a group of talented professionals specialized in Knowledge Graphs and Human Computation with a focus on Smart Cities, Mobility/Transport and Industry 5.0.
I have ~20 years of experience in 40+ cooperative research projects, at regional, national and European level; I started as junior researcher and I have gained increasing responsibilities over time, and now I also cover the roles of Project Manager, Project Coordinator and Principal Investigator. I have been involved in numerous competitive project proposals' submission, with successful grant acquisition for around 8M euro funding for my organization.
I am the author of 100+ publications and I had the pleasure of winning different awards for my scientific and applied research work. Among other research roles, I am member of the Editorial Board of the Open Access Transactions on Graph Data and Knowledge (TGDK).
I believe that I am a multipotentialite, therefore, in my free time, I like to explore all my other passions: I love to read both fantasy novels and psychology/leadership books and I unleash my creativity and artistic side, as an amateur hand-lettering artist.
Main responsibilities: People Manager, Program Manager, Research Manager
I lead one of the competence centers of Cefriel, focused on Knowledge Technologies, reporting directly to the COO. I coordinate a group of 9 people and I am responsible for their professional growth, in terms of both their technical and managerial competences and their soft skills. I design the long term strategy of the group, in accordance to the evolution of technologies and the needs of the company. I supervise and coordinate the acquisition and execution of research, innovation and education projects, both in cooperative settings and in customer consultancy, sometimes also directly with a Project Manager role. I actively participate to the research community and contribute to its advancement.
Main responsibilities: Project Manager, Scientific and Technical Leader, Fund Acquisition
Thanks to the gained experience, I took over more responsibilities, reporting to the Head of Division. As Project Manager, I successfully coordinated and led the project teams in a high number of occasions, and ensured the operational excellence, in terms of satisfaction of requirements, temporal organization and budget constraints. In some of those projects, I also played the role of Project Coordinator and Scientific/Technical Leader, designing and setting up the solution, by challenging the state of the art and by integrating the best scientific expertise and technical elements to achieve the project objectives. I also actively participated to the networking and proposal preparation activities for EU, national and regional research and innovation co-funding programmes, with different activities including consortium building, activity planning, proposal writing, budget and funding preparation.
Main responsibilities: Solution Designer and Developer, Project Manager
I joined Cefriel thanks to my expertise in Semantic Web technologies and, with those skills, I contributed to several research and innovation projects, by designing and developing technological solutions and by directly supporting research advancement. I also had my first experiences as Project Manager, under the supervision of senior professionals of Cefriel, by leading both the company team contributing to cooperative research projects and by coordinating innovation projects in the area of knowledge management for both public and private customers. I started to contribute to project proposals writing, understanding the mechanisms of cooperative research and customer engagement.
Main responsibilities: Proposal Evaluator, Project Monitor
I have been registered as Independent Expert for the European Commission in the context of the 7th Framework Programme, the Horizon 2020 Programme and the Horizon Europe Programme. In this role, I contributed to the monitoring of EU co-funded R&D projects and to the evaluation of project proposals for different European Commission agencies (Research Executive Agency, DG CNECT).
Main responsibilities: Professional-, Master- and PhD-level education (course and lesson preparation and delivery, thesis supervision, student/intern tutoring)
I have been responsible for the design, preparation and delivery for several educational courses and individual lectures, both in professional training context for Cefriel customers and in a more academic context for different research institutions (including Politecnico di Milano and Università degli Studi di Milano Bicocca) and tutorial at scientific events. The main topics of my educational activities have spanned from basic Java programming to Web technologies, Semantic Web, Human Computation, Crowdsourcing and Gamification, as well as Project Management and Requirements Engineering. I have also supervised 10+ Bachelor and Master Thesis, coordinated students groups for the Alta Scuola Politecnica and the International Semantic Web research Summer School. I have also selected and oversaw different interns for temporary employment in Cefriel.
Hereafter, a list of publications, divided by year of publication. The code of each entry specifies the type of publication, as follows: [B] stands for Book, [BC] for Book Chapter, [J] for Journal Paper, [C] for Conference Paper, [T] for Tutorial, [W] for Workshop Paper, [P] for Poster, [E] for Editorial work and [O] for Others.