Chiara Boldrini

Chiara Boldrini

Senior researcher

IIT-CNR

Biography

I’m a senior researcher in the Ubiquitous Internet group of IIT-CNR in Italy.

I am currently pursuing four main research directions.

(1) I’m studying social-aware fully decentralized learning approaches, where users’ personal devices such as smartphones collaborate in a learning task without the coordination of a central server (aka moving beyond federated learning).

(2) I also work on human behavioral/cognitive models for the analysis and design of online social networks. As an example, I am investigating the role that Dunbar’s social circles play in how we interact online (e.g., for link prediction or opinion dynamics). While Dunbar’s social circles may not be known to you, Dunbar’s number should be.

(3) I am investigating how to apply causal learning in pervasive systems. The challenge here is to move beyond current correlation-based learning and achieve knowledge of causal relations rather than simple associations.

(4) What would happen to our social network structures in the Metaverse? Can avatars augment our social capacity?

In the past, I have studied issues related to smart transportation, with a special focus on electric car sharing systems. In particular, I have designed optimized supply models for innovative car sharing systems and I have investigated the potential of mining car sharing datasets (hint: lots of very interesting info can be discovered). I have also worked extensively on both the algorithmic aspects of opportunistic networks (contributing the HiBOp and ContentPlace protocols) and their analytical modelling. While opportunistic networks have never left the research labs to become mainstream, many ideas behind them have (e.g., computation at the Internet edge in 5G networks and D2D contact tracing for COVID-19). I have also worked on the modelization of human mobility (you may have heard of the HCMM protocol).

My h-index is 24 (source: Google Scholar, January 2024).

Interests

  • Human-centered Decentralized AI
  • Social Computing & Computational Social Science
  • Causality for Machine Learning
  • Internet of People
  • Smart Transportation and Urban Data Science
  • Opportunistic/Delay-Tolerant Networks
  • Human Mobility

Education & Qualifications

  • National qualification for Full Professorship, 2020

    Area 09/H1

  • National qualification for Associate Professorship, 2018

    Area 09/H1 and 01/B1

  • PhD in Information Engineering, 2010

    University of Pisa

  • MSc in Computer Engineering, 2006

    University of Pisa

  • BSc in Computer Engineering, 2003

    University of Pisa

What’s going on

New & noteworthy

We’re hiring!

Several positions open (PhD, post-doc, temporary researcher). Check out the detailed description here.

IEEE PerCom 2024 TPC chair

I’m serving as TPC chair for IEEE PerCom 2024.

Community Service

Editorial activity

Editor-in-Chief for Special Issues - Elsevier Computer Communications (since January 2024).

Editorial board member for Elsevier Computer Communications (since September 2018).

Editorial board member for Elsevier Pervasive and Mobile Computing (since September 2018).

Guest Editor for the Feature Topic “Social-aware Communication Networks & Systems and Innovative Social Network Applications & Services” at IEEE Communications Magazine.

Guest Editor for the Elsevier Pervasive and Mobile Computing Special Issue IEEE SmartComp 2022 Selected Papers (SMARTCOMP) 2022.

Guest Editor for the Elsevier Pervasive and Mobile Computing Special Issue IEEE International Conference on Pervasive Computing and Communications (PerCom) 2021.

Lead Guest Editor for the Elsevier Pervasive and Mobile Computing Special Issue on IoT for Fighting COVID-19.

Guest editor of the OSNEM CAOS 2019 Fast Track.

Guest editor of the Computer Communications CHANTS 2016 Fast Track.

Guest editor of the Computer Communications Special Issue on Opportunistic Networking, together with Kyunghan Lee, Melek Önen, Joerg Ott, and Elena Pagani. Check it out here.

Guest editor of the AOC 2011 Fast Track on Computer Communications.

Organising Committee

Conference TPC Chair

TPC chair for IEEE PerCom 2024. My vice-chairs are Sara Khalifa (Queensland University of Technology, Australia), Nirmalya Roy (University of Maryland Baltimore County, USA), Stephan Sigg (Aalto University, Finland).

TPC co-chair for IEEE SmartComp 2022 with Simone Silvestri (Univ. of Kentucky, USA).

TPC vice-chair for IEEE PerCom 2021 with Paul Castro (IBM Watson, USA) and Mahbub Hassan (University of New South Wales, Australia). The TPC chair is Amy L. Murphy (Fondazione Bruno Kessler, Italy).

Virtual Conference Chair

IEEE SECON 2021.

Workshops co-chair

Ital-IA 2023, with Salvo Rinzivillo (ISTI-CNR, Italy).

IEEE ICNP 2022, with Kate Ching-Ju Lin.

ACM MobiHoc 2022, with Christopher G. Brinton.

IEEE PerCom 2016, together with Salil Kanhere.

Demo/poster co-chair

ACM MobiOpp 2012, together with Daniele Puccinelli.

PhD forum co-chair

IEEE SECON 2021, together with Eirini Eleni Tsiropoulou.

IEEE PerCom 2020, together with Diane J. Cook.

Workshop organiser

The first MoD@ITSC17 workshop on Mobility-on-Demand systems, colocated with IEEE ITSC'17. My co-organisers were Raffaele Bruno, Francesco Ciari, Hironori Kato, Kara Kockelman.

Workshop TPC co-chair

IEEE CAOS 2020: The First IEEE INFOCOM Workshop on the Communications and Networking Aspects of Online Social Networks. TPC co-chair: Fabrizio Silvestri (Facebook).

IEEE CAOS 2019: The First IEEE INFOCOM Workshop on the Communications and Networking Aspects of Online Social Networks. TPC co-chair: Fabrizio Silvestri (Facebook).

ACM CHANTS 2016 (together with Marcelo Dias de Amorim from UPMC), IEEE AOC 2012 (together with Merkouris Karaliopoulos, from the University of Athens), IEEE AOC 2011 (together with Elena Pagani from the University of Milan).

Publication chair

ACM MobiHoc 2023 (includes the Submission Chair role), IEEE PerCom 2015, IEEE PerCom 2014, ACM MobiOpp 2010

Publicity chair

IEEE PerCom 2013, IEEE PerCom 2012

TPC

  • IEEE PerCom (GGS A+) 2022-2023, 2014-2020 (served as TPC (vice)-chair for the 2021 and 2024 editions)
  • The Web Conference (GGS A++) 2022-2023 (Social Network Analysis and Graph Algorithms track), 2023-2024(Web & Society track)
  • ACM WSDM (GGS A+) 2023-2024
  • ACM WSDM Demo Track 2024
  • AAAI ICWSM (GGS A) 2020-2024
  • IEEE WoWMoM (GGS B-) 2022-2024
  • ICDCN (GGS WiP) 2015-2016, 2024
  • IEEE ICC (GGS A) 2024
  • IEEE ICT-DM 2023
  • IEEE SECON (GGS A-) 2022-2023
  • IEEE SmartComp 2021, 2023-2024 (served as TPC chair for the 2022 edition)
  • OSNeHM 2023 - workshop colocated with The Web Conference 2023
  • SocialSec 2023
  • IEEE DCOSS-IoT (GGS B) 2023-2024
  • ECML-PKDD (GGS A) 2022
  • IJCAI-ECAI Special track on AI for Good (AI4G) 2022-2023
  • IEEE PerCom Work-in-Progress session 2018-2019, 2021-22
  • IEEE PerCom PhD Forum session 2015
  • ICCCN 2022
  • HHAI 2022-2024
  • IE 2018-2022
  • MIMODE (Migration and Mobility Research in the Digital Era) 2021-2022
  • IEEE IPCCC 2019-2022
  • BNAIC/BeneLearn 2021-2022
  • HMB2020@SocInfo2020
  • ACM CHANTS workshop, colocated with ACM Mobicom 2013-2015, 2017-2019 (served as TPC chair for the 2016 edition)
  • IEEE LCN 2016-2018
  • IEEE AOC, colocated with IEEE WoWMoM 2013-2016
  • IEEE CoMoRea, colocated with IEEE PerCom 2015-2017
  • DySMoNet, in conjuction with IEEE MDM 2013
  • I-TENDER, colocated with ACM CoNEXT 2017
  • IEEE VTC 2013, 2017
  • IEEE PerMoby 2013-2015
  • ICCVE 2013-2015
  • ITCS 2017
  • IFIP Networking - Poster and Demo Session 2017
  • WON workshop, colocated with IEEE AINA, 2014
  • MiPS 2013
  • MNA 2011

Awards

  • IEEE ICT-DM 2023 Best Paper Award
  • Elsevier Computer Communications Journal 2022 Best Editor Award
  • AAAI ICWSM 2022 Best Reviewer
  • IIT Grant - Consolidator 2021 (Project topic: Causal decentralized social AI)
  • Elsevier Pervasive and Mobile Computing Journal 2020
  • RTSI 2016 Best Student Paper Award (student: Elisabetta Biondi)
  • 2014 ACM MSWiM Best Short Paper Award
  • SIGCOMM'09 Student Travel Grant
  • CNR Short-Term Mobility program

Supervising & Teaching

I am co-supervising the following PhD students:

In the past, I have co-supervised:

  • Mustafa Toprak (graduated in 2021) - PhD Program in Smart Computing, joint program by the universities of Florence, Pisa, and Siena
  • Elisabetta Biondi (graduated in 2017) - PhD Program in Information Engineering - University of Pisa.

Teaching

Past classes

Experience

 
 
 
 
 

Senior researcher

IIT-CNR

Jan 2023 – Present Pisa
 
 
 
 
 

Researcher

IIT-CNR

Jan 2012 – Dec 2022 Pisa
 
 
 
 
 

Temporary researcher

IIT-CNR

Mar 2010 – Jan 2012 Pisa
 
 
 
 
 

Visiting PhD student

ETHZ

Sep 2008 – Dec 2008 Zurich
 
 
 
 
 

Research assistant

IIT-CNR

Jan 2007 – Feb 2010 Pisa

Invited Talks & Dissemination

Publications

I gave up and accepted that I cannot keep up with updating my publications here. All my publications can be found on Google Scholar.

Open positions

Check my LinkedIn webpage or the group website for the open positions in our group for the most up-to-date information.

Projects

NRRP FAIR

Future AI Research - Extended Partnership on Artifical Intelligence

NRRP SERICS

Security and rights in the cyberspace - Extended Partnership on Cybersecurity

NRRP ICSC

National Research Centre for High Performance Computing, Big Data and Quantum Computing

NRRP SoBigData.it

Strengthening the Italian RI for Social Mining and Big Data Analytics

CHIST-ERA SAI

Social eXplainable Artificial Intelligence

H2020 HumaneAI-Net

Network of Excellence for European Human-Centered AI

H2020 HumaneAI

Research Roadmap for European Human-Centered AI

H2020 Replicate

Renaissance of Places with Innovative Citizenship and Technology

LIGA (A Fortissimo 2 Experiment)

Large-Scale Indie Gaming Analytics (LIGA)

H2020 SoBigData(++)

European Research Infrastructure for Big Data and Social Mining.

H2020 SoBigData++

European Research Infrastructure for Big Data and Social Mining.

H2020 ESPRIT

Easily diStributed Personal RapId Transit

FP6 HAGGLE

An innovative paradigm for autonomic opportunistic communication.

FP7 EINS

Network of excellence in Internet Science.

FP7 MOTO

Mobile OpportunisTic Traffic Offloading.

FP7 RECOGNITION

Relevance and cognition for self-awareness in a content-centric Internet.

FP7 SCAMPI

Service platform for social Aware Mobile and Pervasive computIng.

FP7 SOCIALNETS

SOCIALNETS Social networking for pervasive adaptation.

Contact