Position/Role

Reader (Associate Professor) in Applied Mathematics and Head of the Complex Systems and Networks group at Queen Mary University of London, UK

Turing Fellow at the Alan Turing Institute, London UK

Professional career

In 1998 Ginestra Bianconi obtained a Laurea in Physics (equivalent to BSc and MSc) at the University of Rome “La Sapienza” and in 2002 she obtained a PhD in Physics at University of Notre Dame, Indiana, USA. She has worked as Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Université de Fribourg, Fribourg, CH  (from 2002 to 2003) and at the International Center for Theoretical Physics (ICTP), Trieste, Italy (from 2003 to 2009). In 2009 she was appointed Assistant Professor in the Department of Physics at Northeastern University, Boston, USA. In 2013 she joined the School of Mathematical Sciences at Queen Mary University of London (QMUL), London, UK where since 2015 she is Reader in Applied Mathematics. In 2018 she has been appointed Alan Turing Fellow at the Alan Turing Institute and Head of the Complex Systems and Networks group at QMUL.

Scientific results

Ginestra Bianconi’s research focuses on Network Theory,Applied Mathematics and Statistical Mechanics applied to Complex Systems. Networks describe the rich underlying structure of Complex Systems and are formed by the set of elements of the system (nodes) and the interactions among them (links). The most prominent examples of complex networks include the brain and social networks.

Ginestra Bianconi’s research activity in Network Theory is motivated by the urgent need to develop theoretical approaches that address the challenges posed by the complexity of real networks using innovative approaches at the frontier between Applied Mathematics and Statistical Mechanics. Among her most relevant results we mention the Bianconi-Barabási model. This model explains how networks such as the Internet or the World-Wide-Web evolve by establishing a map between the network evolution and the Bose-Einstein condensation, a quantum phenomenon occurring in a gas of Bose particles. Another notable research line of Ginestra Bianconi is the formulation of an information theory of networks based on entropy of network ensembles that can be used to solve inference problems. Recently the research activity of Ginestra Bianconi has focused on multilayer networks that describe systems formed by several interacting networks and on network geometry. Additonally, Ginestra Bianconi has several interdisciplinary collaborations with scientists in neuroscience and informatics and with economists.

Editorial work and publications

Ginestra Bianconi is the editorial manager of several scientific journals including Nature Scientific Reports and Annals of Physics. She is also the author of more than 100 publications, including: 

(2018) Bianconi, G, Multilayer Networks: Structure and Function (Oxford University Press)

(2014) Bianconi G, Dorogovtsev SN. Multiple percolation transitions in a configuration model of a network of networks. Physical Review E, 89(6):062814. 
(2014) Menichetti G, Dall'Asta L, Bianconi G. Network controllability is determined by the density of low in-degree and out-degree nodes. Physical review letters, 113(7): 078701. 
(2014) Boccaletti S, Bianconi G, Criado R, Del Genio CI, Gómez-Gardenes J, Romance M, Sendina-Nadal I, Wang Z, Zanin M. The structure and dynamics of multilayer networks. Physics Reports, 544(1):1-122. 
(2013) Bianconi G. Statistical mechanics of multiplex networks: Entropy and overlap. Physical Review E, 87(6):062806. 
(2010) Stehlé J, Barrat A, Ginestra Bianconi G. Dynamical and bursty interactions in social networks. Physical review E, 81(3): 035101. 
(2009) Bianconi G, Pin P, Marsili M. Assessing the relevance of node features for network structure. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 106(28):11433-11438. 
(2009) Kartik A, Bianconi G. Entropy measures for networks: Toward an information theory of complex topologies. Physical Review E, 80(4):045102. 
(2007) Bianconi G. The entropy of randomized network ensembles. Europhysics Letters, 81(2): 28005. 
(2001) Bianconi G, Barabási A-L. Competition and multiscaling in evolving networks. Europhysics Letter, 54(4):436. 
(2001) Bianconi G, Ginestra, Barabási A-L. Bose-Einstein condensation in complex networks. Physical review letters, 86(24):5632.

Awards and prizes

Ginestra Bianconi is member of the Network Science Society, the European Complex Systems Society, the London Mathematical Society, the European Physics Society and the European Women in Mathematics Society.

Position/Role

Full professor of Mathematics of the University of Rome Tor Vergata and Member of the ANVUR Governing Board

Professional career

After the Master degree in Mathematics as the University of Rome La Sapienza, she continued her studies through a PhD in Mathematics at the Swiss Polytechnic Institute (ETH) in Zuerich, awarded in 1989. Afterwards, she becomes Researcher in Mathematical Physics at the Department of Mathematics of the University of L’Aquila until 1999. Since then, she is associate professor of Mathematical Physics at the University of Rome Tor Vergata. Since 2013 she is full professor at the same university; from 2015 to 2018 she has been chair of the Department of Mathematics of the University of Rome Tor Vergata, where she coordinates since 2010 the post-graduate course in “Space Science and Technology”. In 2019 she was appointed Board Member of the Italian Space Agency, a role she held until February 2020. Since April 2020 she is a member of the Board of Directors of ANVUR.

Scientific results

The research interests of Alessandra Celletti include celestial mechanics, dynamical systems theory, interplanetary trajectories and the study of the dynamics of space debris. Celestial Mechanics is a discipline which dates back to primordial times and studies the dynamics of objects in the solar system, form the Moon to the planets, from spacecraft to artificial satellites. There are several open questions that celestial mechanics tries to answer: for example, whether the solar system will undergo collisions among the planets, how it is possible to design interplanetary low-cost trajectories, which is the fate of the space debris orbiting around the Earth or which is the probability of the threat induced ny the collision of an asteroid with the Earth.

Editorial work and publications

She is author of several books at university and popular level:

Celletti A, Esercizi di Meccanica Razionale, Aracne editrice, 1999. 

Celletti A, Stability and Chaos in Celestial Mechanics, Springer-Praxis, 2010. 

Celletti A, Perozzi E, Celestial Mechanics: The Waltz of the Planets, Springer-Praxis, 2007.

Celletti A, Perozzi E, Pianeti per caso, UTET, 2012. 

Celletti A., Meccanica Celeste, Lezioni di Fisica, Corriere della Sera, 2019.

Alessandra Celletti is also author of several scientific publications on national and international journals, among which:

(2018) Celletti A., Gales C., "Dynamics of resonances and equilibria of Low Earth Objects", SIAM J. Appl. Dyn. Syst., vol. 17:203-235

(2016) Celletti A, Gales C, Pucacco G. Bifurcation of lunisolar secular resonances for space debris orbits. SIAM, Journal on Applied Dynamical Systems, 15(3):1352-1383. 
(2016) Lhotka C, Celletti A, Gales C. Poynting-Robertson drag and solar wind in the space debris problem. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 460(1):802-815. 
(2015) Celletti A, Gales C. Dynamical investigation of minor resonances for space debris.Celestial Mechanics and Dynamical Astronomy, 123(2):203-222. 
(2015) Celletti A, Pucacco G, Stella D. Lissajous and Halo orbits in the restricted three-body problem. Journal of Nonlinear Science, 25(2):343-370. 
(2014) Celletti A, Gales C. On the dynamics of space debris: 1:1 and 2:1 resonances. Journal of Nonlinear Science, 24(6):1231-1262. 
(2014) Calleja R, Celletti A, Falcolini C, de la Llave R. An extension of Greene's criterion for conformally symplectic systems and a partial justification. SIAM Journal on Mathematical Analysis, 46(4):2350-2384. 
(2013) Calleja R, Celletti A, de la Llave R. A KAM theory for conformally symplectic systems: efficient algorithms and their validation. Journal of Differential Equations, 255(5):978-1049. 
(2011) Celletti A, Stefanelli L, Lega E, Froeschle' C. Global dynamics of the regularized restricted three-body problem with dissipation. Celestial Mechanics and Dynamical Astronomy, 109:265-284. 
(2009) Celletti A, Chierchia L. Quasi-periodic attractors in Celestial Mechanics. Archive for Rational Mechanics and Analysis, 191(2):311-345.

Awards and prizes

From 2011 to 2013 Alessandra Celletti is chair of the Italian Society of Celestial Mechanics and Astrodynamics; the asteroid 2005 DJ1, n. 117539 bears the name Alessandra Celletti. In 2010 she is elected member of the Celestial Mechanics Institute, an international organization composed by about 20 experts in Celestial Mechanics. In 2012 she is invited speaker at the sixth congress of the European Mathematical Society. She received from the Europen Community grants for the projects "Marie Curie Innovative Training Networks" called Astronet-II (2011), Stardust (2013), Stardust-R (2019). In 2018 she becomes president of the Scientific Committee in Celestial Mechanics of the International Astronomical Union. During the period 2015-2018 she is member of the scientific committee of the Italian Mathematical Union and since 2014 of the scientific committee of the Italian National Group of Mathematical Physics. In 2016 she is elected Editor in Chief of the international journal "Celestial Mechanics & Dynamical Astronomy" (edited by Springer), a reference publication in the field of Celestial Mechanics and Flight Dynamics. She is e member  of the Committee Women in Mathematics of the European Mathematical Society. In September 2018 she was elected Presidente of the Celestial Mechanic and Astrodynamics Committee of the International Astronomical Union.

Position/Role

Full Professor of Numerical Analysis at the University of Pavia

Professional career

After graduating in Mathematics at the University of Pavia in 1970 she has been fellow first, and then Researcher of C.N.R. at the Istituto di Analisi Numerica in Pavia (now IMATI-CNR) from 1973 to 1990.  Since 1990 she is Full Professor of Numerical Analysis, at the Faculty of Science of the University of Genova until 1993, and then at the Engineering Faculty of the University of Pavia. Currently, she is professor emerita of Numerical Analysis at the Department of Mathematics of the University of Pavia.

Scientific results

The field of interest of Luisa Donatella Marini is, generally speaking, the analysis of numerical schemes for the solution of elliptic partial differential equations (of second and fourth order) by means of different kinds of finite element methods: conforming, non-conforming, hybrid, mixed, and equilibrium. More specifically, she applied finite element techniques for the treatment of problems coming from various applications: semiconductor device simulation, electromagnetism, fluid-dynamics, structural mechanics. Particular emphasis was given to the approximation of non-coercive problems, which lead to develop various techniques for stabilizing Galerkin formulations, for applications to domain decomposition methods with non-matching grids, and to advection dominated problems. In the last decade she was particularly interested in developing and analyzing schemes based on Discontinuous Galerkin methods, for the discretization of various applied problems, such as Darcy flows, advection-diffusion problems, and Reissner-Mindlin model for plate problems. The more recent production is devoted to a new technique, the Virtual Element Method, for the discretization of Pde's  with applications.

Editorial work and publications

L. Donatella Marini serves or has served as Associate Editor of various journals:  SISC (SIAM Journal on Scientific and Statistical Computing) from 1988 to 1993,  CMAME (Computer Methods in Applied Mechanics and Engineering) since 2001,  IMA Journal of Numerical Analysis, since 2017, the Italian Journal of Pure and Applied Mathematics since 2008, and is member of the Advisory Board of CAMES (Computer Assisted Methods in Engineering and Sciences) since 2014.  She is also reviewer for other numerous important international journals, and evaluator for national and international proposals.

She authored over 100 publications on international journals. Several of her journal articles are among the most cited in mathematics. Below five selected publications. For a complete list I refer to my webpage: http://arturo.imati.cnr.it/marini

[2002] Unified analysis of Discontinuous Galerkin Methods for Elliptic Problems. SIAM Journal on Numerical Analysis, 39(5):1749-1779 (with Arnold DN, Brezzi F, Cockburn B). 

[1985] Marini LD. Two families of mixed finite elements for second order elliptic problems. Journal of Numerical Mathematics, 47:217-235 (with Brezzi F, Douglas J jr.,).

[2013] Basic principles of Virtual Element Methods. Mathematical Models and Methods in Applied Sciences, 23(1):199-214 (with Beirão da Veiga L, Brezzi F, Cangiani A, Manzini G, Russo A.). 

[2013]Virtual Elements for linear elasticity problems, SIAM J. Numer. Anal. 51(2):794-812 (with  Beirão da Veiga L, Brezzi F).

[2014] The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Virtual Element Method, Math. Models Methods. Appl. Sci. 24(8):1541-1573 (with Beirão da Veiga L, Brezzi F, Russo A).

Awards and prizes

She was awarded the Turner-Kirk Distinguished Visiting Fellowship for the GCS programme at the Isaac Newton Institute (Cambridge, UK), July-December 2019, is Member of the scientific committee of the 20th International Conference on Finite Elements in Flow Problems (FEF 2019, Chicago), is representative of SIMAI (The Italian Society of Applied and Industrial Mathematics) in the General Assembly and Managing Board of the European Community on Computational Methods in Applied Sciences (ECCOMAS) since 2014,  has been Chair of the committee for the ICIAM (The International Council for Industrial and Applied Mathematics)  Collatz prize in 2015. In 2010 she was elected a member of the European Academy of Science (EURASC), where she also serves as a member of the scientific committee of the Division of Mathematics (March 2018-March 2021). She has been member of the Committee for PhD programs at the University of Pavia from 1999 to 2009, and then Director of the Doctoral School of  “Scienze e Tecnologie A. Volta” of the University of Pavia from 2009 to 2013. In 2012 she delivered the inaugural lecture for the opening of the academic year at the University of Pavia.

Position/Role

Group Leader at Max Planck Institute for Mathematics in the Sciences (Germany).

Professional career

Raffaella Mulas obtained her Master's degree at the University of Bonn in 2017, and her PhD at Max Planck Institute for Mathematics in the Sciences (MPI MiS) in 2020. After a postdoc at the Alan Turing Institute of London, she was awarded a Minerva Fast Track Fellowship from the Max Planck Society and became the group leader of the “Spectral Hypergraph Theory” research group at the MPI MiS. Starting from March 2023, she will be an Assistant Professor in Applied Mathematics at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.

Scientific results

Raffaella Mulas' research focuses on network sciences, and in particular on the spectral theory of graphs and hypergraphs. Her results are mostly in pure mathematics, but she has many interdisciplinary collaborations that allow her to work also on applications, for instance to physics and biology.

Editorial work and publications

[2022] Mulas R, Horak D, Jost J. Graphs, Simplicial Complexes and Hypergraphs: Spectral Theory and Topology. In: Higher-Order Systems, Understanding Complex Systems, F. Battiston and G. Petri (eds.), Springer.

[2022] Mulas R, Kuehn, C, Böhle T, Jost J. Random walks and Laplacians on hypergraphs: When do they match?. Discrete Applied Mathematics, 317:26-41.

[2022] Galuppi F, Mulas R, Venturello L. Spectral theory of weighted hypergraphs via tensors. Linear and Multilinear Algebra, DOI: 10.1080/03081087.2022.2030659.

[2021] Mulas R, Zhang D. Spectral theory of Laplace operators on oriented hypergraphs. Discrete Mathematics, 344(6):112372.

[2021] Mulas R. A Cheeger Cut for Uniform Hypergraphs. Graphs and Combinatorics, 37: 2265-2286.

[2021] Abiad A, Mulas R, Zhang D. Coloring the normalized Laplacian for oriented hypergraphs. Linear Algebra and Its Applications, 629:192-207.

[2021] Mulas R, Casey MJ. Estimating cellular redundancy in networks of genetic expression. Mathematical Biosciences, 341:108713.

[2020] Mulas R, Kuehn C, Jost J. Coupled dynamics on hypergraphs: Master stability of steady states and synchronization. Physical Review E, 101(6):062313.

[2019] Jost J, Mulas R. Hypergraph Laplace operators for chemical reaction networks. Advances in Mathematics, 351:870–896.

Awards and prizes

In 2020, she was awarded the Prize "Donna di Scienza Giovani" (Woman of Science Young). In 2021, she was  awarded a Minerva Fast Track Fellowship from the Max Planck Society, and in the same year, she was elected Member of the Elisabeth-Schiemann-Kolleg.

Moreover, she won a Science Slam Prize from the Max Planck Society PhD-net in 2018, for her outreach activity. For an illustration she made, in 2021 she was awarded the First Prize at the Mathematics and Diversity Art Competition of the University of Southampton.

Position/Role

Full Professor of Mathematical Analysis in the University of Catania, Italy

Professional career

After graduating in Mathematics, with honors, at the University of Catania in 1988, she became, in 1989, Expert in Mathematical Analysis at the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Catania. In 1990 she passed the admission exam to the PhD in Mathematics at the University of Catania. In 1992 she won a competition exam for University Researcher in Mathematical Analysis at the University of Catania, in 2000 she was Associate Professor at the University of Catania. In 2012 she was awarded a PhD in Mathematics from Luleå University (Sweden).

In 2013 she obtained the national scientific qualification as Full Professor of Mathematical Analysis and from 2017 she is Full Professor of Mathematical Analysis at the University of Catania. She is Chief Researcher of the Center of Nonlinear Problems of Mathematical Physics, RUDN University, Moscow (Russia). She is a member of the Academic Board of the PhD in Mathematics at the University of Catania, and of international PhD exam commissions. She has held teaching courses for the Research Doctorate in Italy, France, Turkey and Sweden.

She is responsible for research projects of the "National Group for Mathematical Analysis, Probability and their Applications (GNAMPA) - National Institute of High Mathematics", of ERASMUS agreements between the University of Catania and foreign Universities in Sweden, Norway, Romania, Turkey and France.

She is Vice Dean of the Faculty of Mathematical, Physical and Natural Sciences of the University of Catania from 2009 to 2012, she was elected, in 2012, President of the Master of Science in Environmental Protection Sciences of the University of Catania, and in 2013 Director of the "University Center for the Protection and Management of Natural Environments and Agro-Ecosystems" (CUTGANA).

She is Deputy Rector of the University of Catania to the Internationalization in the scientific field.

 She is the contact person for Catania of the Unione Matematica Italiana, member of the Gioenia Academy, proponent member of the "Angelo Marcello Anile Center for Mathematics for Technology" of the University of Catania, proponent member of the "Interdepartmental research center for community engagement" (CUrE) of the University of Catania It is included in the Register of expert evaluators of the National Agency for the Evaluation of University and Research (ANVUR).

Scientific results

She is currently responsible for a research group that is interested in the study of partial differential, linear and quasilinear equations and climate change and their impact.

 With her team he defined an index that makes it possible to easily calculate the territorial effect of sensitivity to desertification in order to exceed the international protocol limit "Mediterranean Mediterranean Desertification And Land Use European" (MEDALUS), which does not provide an estimate of sensitivity to the desertification of a territorial area (municipal, provincial, regional, hydrographic area) through a single value. This index has significant advantages, because it produces effective rankings, with the consequent possibility of processing comparative data in relation to different time periods.

Within the scope of this research in mathematics applied to the protection of the environment, the effects of the impact of the transport of Saharan dust on particulate matter (PM10) are studied.

The results of these researches have been exhibited in international conferences in all 5 continents, of which about 20 organized by her in Europe and the USA, being part of scientific committees in which she was sometimes the only Italian member. She has held seminars in numerous Italian and foreign universities, being, by way of example only: guest of research groups, invited guest on the occasion of intensive semesters of the National Institute of High Mathematics (INDAM), guest of the "Mathematics Research Center E. De Giorgi "of the" Scuola Normale Superiore "of Pisa, of the" Newton Institute "of Cambridge, of the Department of Mathematics of the" Research Melbourne Institute of Technology "of Melbourne, of the" Tokyo University of Science "of Tokyo, of the" Florida Institute of Technology "of Miami, of the Department of Mathematics, of the" Harvard University "of Boston, of the" Mittag-Leffler "Institute of the Swedish Royal Academy of Sciences in Stockholm.

Editorial work and publications

She is the  unique Editor in Chief of the international journal "Journal of Mathematics Research", published by the Canadian Center of Science and Education, Editor of the volume of "Journal of Inequalities and Applications" ed. Springer. 2015, member of Editorial Board of several international scientific journals  published on Scopus and Web of Science with impact factor. 

She is the author of more than 90 scientific publications, in single name and in collaboration with about 30 co-authors, of which one third are Italians and the other Europeans and non-Europeans. She published papers having only her name in journals that are among the top 10 of the Journal Citation Reports and publications that, in both the Scopus and Web of Science databases, have more than 170 citations.

Just as examples, some of his scientific publications:

2021) Hamdy M. Ahmed, Reda A. Elbarkouky, Othman A. M. Omar,  and Maria Alessandra Ragusa. Models for COVID-19 Daily Confirmed Cases in Different Countries. Mathematics, 9:659.

(2018) Guliyev V, Omarova M, Ragusa MA, Scapellato A. Commutators and Generalized Local Morrey Spaces. Journal of Mathematical Analysis and Applications, 457 (2): 1388-1402.

(2017) Cuspilici A, Monforte P, Ragusa MA. Study of Saharan dust influence on PM10 measures in Sicily from 2013 to 2015. Ecological Indicatiors, 76: 297-303.

(2017) Deringoz F, Guliyev V, Ragusa MA. Intrinsic Square Functions on Vanishing Generalized Orlicz-Morrey Spaces. Set-Valued and Variational Analysis, 25: 807–828.

(2017) Ragusa MA, Scapellato A. Mixed Morrey spaces and their applications to partial differential equations. Nonlinear Analysis-Theory Methods & Applications, 151: 51-65.

(2017) Duro A, Piccione V, Ragusa MA, Rapicavoli V, Veneziano V. Enviromentally Sensitive Patch Index of desertification risk applied to the main habitats of Sicily. Book Series: American Institute of Physics, 1863, Article Number: UNSP 510005.

(2014) Benboenou S, Ragusa MA, Terberche M. Remarks on Leray's self-similar solutions to the 3D magnetohydrodynamic equations. Mathematical Methods in the Applied Sciences, 37 (17): 2615-2618.

(2013) Ragusa MA, Tachikawa A, Takabayashi H. Partial regularity of p(x)-harmonic maps. Transactions of the American Mathematical Society, 365 (6):3329-3353.

(2012) Persson LE, Ragusa MA, Samko N, Wall P. Commutators of Hardy operators in vanishing Morrey spaces. Book Series: American Institute of Physics, 1863:859-866.

(2008) ) Polidoro S, Ragusa MA. Harnack inequality for hypoelliptic ultraparabolic equations with a singular lower order term. Revista Matematica Iberoamericana Vol. 24, 1011-1046.

(2002) Ragusa MA. Local holder regularity for solutions of elliptic system. Duke Mathematical Journal, 113 (2):385-397.

(2000) D. Palagachev, M.A. Ragusa, L. Softova. Regular Oblique derivatives problem in Morrey Spaces. El. Journal of Differential Equations (39).

Position/Role

Full professor of operations research and President of International Federation of Operational Research Societies, University of Brescia

Professional career

After graduating in Mathematics in 1980 from the University of Milan, she continued her education by attending the Scuola di Perfezionamento in Matematica. In 1983 she graduated, becoming an operational researcher. From 1983 to 1987 she was an associate professor in the Faculty of Mathematical, Physical and Natural Sciences at the University of Udine. She then held a collaborative position at the Institute for Applications of Mathematics and Informatics of the CNR, from 1986 to 1987. Since 1994 she has been full professor of Operational Research at the Faculty of Economics of the University of Brescia. From 2002 to 2008 she is Dean of the same faculty. Since 1 November 2016 she has been Deputy Vice-Chancellor of the University of Brescia.

Scientific results

The research activity of Maria Grazia Speranza is oriented to the study of mixed integer mathematical programming models, that is optimization models where a function is minimized or maximized subject to constraints and the variables must take integer values. Such models have been applied to several problems, in particular in the area of finance, where the decision concerns the investment of a capital in securities with the objective of  minimizing the risk while guaranteeing a given average rate of return, and to the area of transportation and logistics where location or distribution decisions must be taken with the objective of minimizing the costs while guaranteeing a given service level. Most recent research concerns the value of collaboration and shared mobility.

Editorial work and publications

Maria Grazia Speranza is editor of international scientific journals such as  Transportation Science and  EURO Journal on Transportation and Logistics. She is author of more than 150 publications among which: 

(2018) Archetti C, Christiansen, M, Speranza MG. Inventory routing with pickups and deliveries,  European Journal of Operational Research,  268:314–324.

(2018) Speranza MG. Trends in transportation and logistics,  European Journal of Operational Research, 264: 830–836.

(2017) Guastaroba G, Savelsbergh M,  Speranza MG.Adaptive kernel search: A heuristic for solving mixed integer linear programs,   European Journal of Operational Research, 263: 789-804.

(2017) Archetti C, Boland N, Speranza MG. A matheuristic for the multi-vehicle inventory routing problem,  Informs Journal on Computing, 29:377-387.

(2016) Guastaroba G, Vigo D, Speranza MG.Intermediate facilities in freight transportation planning: a survey, Transportation Science, 50:763-789. 

She has also written two books:

S. Martello, M.G. Speranza, Ricerca operativa per l'economia e l'impresa, Esculapio, 2012. 
R. Mansini, W. Ogryczak, M. G. Speranza, Linear and Mixed Integer Programming for Portfolio Optimization, EURO Advanced Tutorials on Operational Research, Springer, 2015.

Awards and prizes

In  2008-2009 she was Vice-President of IFORS (International Federation of Operation Research Societies). In  2011-2012 she was President of the EURO (Association of European Operational Research Societies). In 2014 she was President of the Transportation Science and Logistic Society of INFORMS (The Institute for Operations Research and the Management Science). From 2019 to 2021 she is President of IFORS. She is member of scientific committees of the major conferences in the area of transportation and logistics. She has been chair of the  program committee of the IFORS conference in Quebec City in  2017. She was plenary speaker at several international conferences and in particular at Optimization days 2005 in Montréal  (together with John Nash) and at the 27th European Conference on Operational Research in Glasgow in 2015.

Position/Role

Full Professor of Statistics at the Università degli Studi di Perugia.

Professional career

Elena Stanghellini graduated in Economics at the Università degli Studi di Firenze in 1991, where she also completed in 1995 the Ph.D. in Applied Statistics. After a position as Research Fellow at the Open University in Milton Keynes (U.K.), in 1996 she awards a permanent position as Researcher in Statistics at the Università degli Studi di Perugia, where she became full professor in 2005.

In 2005 she is consultant to the Regional Institute of Economic Planning of Tuscany (I.R.P.E.T.) for a research about the analysis and forecasts of the regional tourist flows.

In 2007 she is Visiting Professor at the Center of Research in Statistical Methodology of the University of Warwick (U.K.). 

In 2007 she is consultant to the World Bank for a survey about the environmental perceptions and behaviours of the Teheran residents.

In 2008 consultant to IRPET for the analysis of competitiveness of the European Regions.

 In 2009 consultant to the Ministry of Treasure (Department UVAL) for the development of a methodology for the definition of urban and rural areas, based on socioeconomic variables.

From 2010 to 2012 she is a member of the Research Group for the Sustainable Investment Research Program (SIRP), funded by the Swedish Foundation MISTRA.

From 2011 to 2013 she participates in the research group “Identification of Graphical Markov Models with latent variables”, with annual meetings at the American Institute of Mathematics, Palo Alto.

From 2011 to 2014, she is a member of the Swedish research group SIMSAM, to study the long term effects on health of the exposure to risk factors during childhood. 

From 2013 to 2016 she is Director of the Ph.D. program in Mathematical and Statistical Methods for Economic and Social Sciences. 

From 2014 to 2019 she is appointed Deputy Rector for International Relationships. In this position, she was responsible of the relations with foreign Universities, Italian Ministries and the National University Council (CUN). Several missions abroad.

From 2015 to 2019 she is Affiliated Professor at the Umeå University (SE).  

In 2020 she is in the Advisory Board of the national Italian Bureau of Statistics (ISTAT) for the design and implementation of sample surveys to measure and monitor epidemiological parameters of COVID-19 pandemic. Currently, she is involved in two projects, in Lombardy and Tuscany, for the analysis of COVID-19 individual data.

In 2020 and 2021 she partecipates several times at the SKY TV program “The numbers of pandemic”. In 2020 she joined the Rotary E-Club “Due Mondi”, with meetings mainly online. Presently she teaches “Statistics” and “Statistical models for Credit Scoring” and “Graphical Markov Models”.

Scientific results

Her main scientific achievements concern (a) the extension of graphical models for continuous random variables to asymmetrically distributed random variables (b) the analysis of point or interval identifiability of statistical models with missing information and (c) causal inference. 

With reference to (a) she has derived the first extension of graphical models to include Extended Skew-Normal variates. With reference to point (b) she has derived condition of identifiability of graphical models for both Gaussian and discrete random variables with one dimensional confounding factor and condition for interval identification of continuous or binary response models under informative missingness of the outcome. With reference to point (c) she has derived the parametric decomposition of the total effect with binary mediators. 

All results have been derived in cooperation with researchers from Italian and foreign universities.  From the applied viewpoint, she has worked on micro econometric data to forecast the default event in SME, to study the relationship between Corporate Social Responsibility and profitability. In epidemiology, she has been involved in the evaluation of the efficacy of a treatment in a case-control study and in the estimate of the unknown numbers of individual of an elusive population via capture-recapture methods. 

Editorial work and publications

Since 2011, she participates in the Editorial Board of the International Journal “Statistical Papers”.

She has published numerous scientific contributions, including the following.

[2021] Raggi M., Stanghellini E., Doretti M. Path Analysis for Binary Random Variables. Sociological Methods and Research. Forthcoming.

[2019] Stanghellini E., Doretti M.. On marginal and conditional parameters in logistic regression models. Biometrika, 106(3):732-739. 

[2018] Doretti M., Geneletti S., Stanghellini E. Missing Data: A Unified Taxonomy Guided by Conditional Independence. International Statistical Review, 86: 189-204.

[2014] Genbäck, M., Stanghellini E., De Luna X. Uncertainty Intervals for regression parameters with non-ignorable missingness in the outcome. Statistical Papers, 56(3): 829-847.

[2014] Nicolosi M., Grassi S., Stanghellini E. Item Response Models to Measure Corporate Social Responsibility. Applied Financial Economics, 24(22):1449-1464.

[2013] Stanghellini E., Vantaggi B. On the identification of discrete concentration graph models with one hidden binary variable. Bernoulli, 19(5A): 1920-1937.

[2011]. Hutton J.L., Stanghellini E. Modelling bounded health scores with censored skew-normal distributions. Statistics in Medicine, 30: 368–376. 

[2009] Stanghellini E. Introduzione ai metodi statistici per il Credit Scoring. Springer Verlag Italia. Monografia.

[2005] Stanghellini E., Wermuth N. On the identification of path analysis models with one hidden variable. Biometrika, 92(2):337-350.

[2004] Stanghellini E., Van der Heijden P.G.M. A multiple-record systems estimation method that takes observed and unobserved heterogeneity into account. Biometrics, 60: 510-516. 

[2003] Capitanio A., Azzalini A., Stanghellini E. Graphical Models for skew-normal variates. Scandinavian Journal of Statistics, 30: 129-144.

[1997] Stanghellini E. Identification of a single-factor model using graphical Gaussian rules. Biometrika 84: 241-244.

Awards and prizes

1997: Ex-aequo winner of the Prize for the best PhD Thesis in Statistics (VII Cycle) by the Italian Statistical Society.

1999: Recipient of the Jemolo Fellowship at the Nuffield College of the University of Oxford. 

2010 to date: Elected Member of the International Statistical Institute.

2011: Winner of the Square Grant by the American Institute of Mathematics.