Position/Role

Full Professor of Manufacturing and Production Systems, Deputy Head of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Politecnico di Milano

Professional career

After graduating in Management Engineering at Politecnico di Milano in 1996, prof. Colosimo got a PhD in Manufacturing and Production Systems in 2001; in the same year she was visiting postdoc at the Department of Industrial Engineering at Pennsylvania State University (PSU). In 1999 she became researcher (assistant professor) and in 2003 associate professor; from 2014 she is full professor of Manufacturing and Production Systems at Politecnico di Milano. Since 2012 she has been the Coordinator of the PhD Programme in Mechanical Engineering in the same university, and member of the Department Board since 2014. In January 2017 she has been nominated Deputy Head of the Department of Mechanical Engineering of Politecnico di Milano.

Scientific results

The main research interest of prof. Colosimo concerns the development of innovative solutions for data mining, monitoring and control in advanced manufacturing processes (e.g., additive manufacturing or 3D printing). She is carrying out research activities in several international projects, such as SAMM (Smart Additive Manufacturing for Metal) in collaboration with Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT); some European projects (e.g., CleanSky2 AMATHO for the production of large aeronautical components in additive manufacturing); several national and regional  projects on Intelligent Manufacturing (Cluster- High Performance Machining and Sustainable Manufacturing; Made4Lo). She currently has active collaborations with several international research groups: Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech), Pennsylvania State University, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST), among the others.

Editorial work and publications

Bianca Maria Colosimo is Editor-in-chief of  the Journal of Quality Technology (Taylor & Francis). She is in the Editorial Board of Polimi Springerbriefs since 2013 and of IISE Transactions since 2017. She has been acting as refereefor many international journals, such as International Journal of Production Research, Technometrics, IISE Transactions (former IIE Transactions) and The International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology. 

She is co-author of more than 130 publications, including: 

(2018) Colosimo B.M., Grasso M. Spatially Weighted PCA for Monitoring Video Image Data with Application to Additive Manufacturing, Journal of Quality Technology, vol. 4, 2018.

(2018) Repossini G., Laguzza V., Grasso M., Colosimo B.M., On the use of spatter signature for in-situ monitoring of Laser Powder Bed Fusion, Additive Manufacturing, 16, 35-48

(2017)   Grasso M., Colosimo B.M., Process Defects and In-situ Monitoring Methods in Metal Powder Bed Fusion: a Review, Measurement Science and Technology, 28(4), 1-25.

(2017) Wang J, Pagani L, Leach RK, Zeng W, Colosimo BM, Zhou L. Study of weighted fusion methods for the measurement of surface geometry. Precision Engineering, 47, 111-121. 

(2017) Grasso M, Laguzza V, Semeraro Q, Colosimo BM. In-Process Monitoring of Selective Laser Melting: Spatial Detection of Defects Via Image Data Analysis. ASME Journal of Manufacturing Science and Engineering, 139(5), 016.

(2016) Grasso M, Colosimo BM, Tsung F. A phase I multi-modelling approach for profile monitoring of signal data. International Journal of Production Research, 1-24. 

(2015) Colosimo BM, Pacella M, Senin N. Multisensor data fusion via Gaussian process models for dimensional and geometric verification. Precision Engineering, 40:199-213.

(2015) Del Castillo E, Colosimo BM, Tajbakhsh S. Geodesic Gaussian Processes for the Reconstruction of a Free-Form Surface. Technometrics, 57, 1, 87-98.

(2014) Colosimo BM, Cicorella P, Pacella M, Blaco M. From profile to surface monitoring: SPC for cylindrical surfaces via Gaussian Processes. Journal of Quality Technology, 46(2):95-113.

(2013) Colombo D, Colosimo BM, Previtali B. Comparison of methods for data analysis in the remote monitoring of remote laser welding. Optics and Lasers in Engineering, 51, 34-46. 

(2008) Colosimo BM, Pacella M, Semeraro Q. Statistical Process Control for Geometric Specifications: On the Monitoring of Roundness Profiles. Journal of Quality Technology, 40(1):1-18. 

Awards and prizes

In 1996 prof. Colosimo won the UCIMU Degree Award (Union of Italian Machine Tool Manufacturers) and in 2003 was awarded the Young Researcher Award of the Italian Association of Mechanical Technologies (AITeM). In 2008 the article Statistical Process Control for Geometric Specifications of theJournal of Quality Technology, that she co-authored, was recognized as the "Top downloaded paper of the year ".  In 2017 she was invited speaker at the Stu-Hunter conference.