I am a Research Fellow and Associate Lecturer at the Knowledge Media Institute (KMi) of The Open University (RoR), working on novel AI solutions to analyse scholarly data, contributing to the field of Metascience. I created several systems used by publishers and research organisations, such as the Computer Science Ontology (CSO), currently the largest taxonomy of research topics in Computer Science; the CSO Classifier, which annotates research documents; and Augur, a tool for detecting emerging research topics.
My collaborations extend to several international institutions, including the University of Cagliari (IT), Stanford University (US), the University of Hannover (DE), and Springer Nature, with whom I am actively working to improve the classification and management of their research content.
My current research investigates the potential of Large Language Models in supporting the analysis of scientific knowledge. Specifically, I am exploring how these models can be augmented with domain knowledge to facilitate a deeper understanding of scientific content and provide enhanced support to researchers and practitioners in their daily activities. Within the broader context of metascience, my interests lie in AI Policies, Forensic Scientometrics, Research Culture, and Research Impact. To know more about my work you can read my recent blog posts, see my recent publications, or read my full CV.
Background
Before getting my Master’s, I started working within the Department of Electrical and Information Engineering at Polytechnic of Bari as Research Assistant and Software Engineer.
During this period, I have been involved in several
research projects. Although these projects had different aims, my activities were always related to Knowledge Discovery. I, firstly, joined
SS-RR, an Italian project aiming to the detection of harmony levels between one or more people in relation to external stimuli. Afterwards, I was involved in
LAMreCOR for the study of data mining algorithms to improve goods delivery. In the meantime, I was also involved in
Smart Health 2.0 for providing new solutions for the early diagnosis of Alzheimer’s Disease in elderly patients.
In December 2014, I moved to the KMi to start my Ph.D. In this research project, I was working on Augur, a novel approach to the
early detection of research topics. Augur analyses the diachronic relationships between research areas and is able to detect clusters of topics that exhibit dynamics correlated with the emergence of new research topics. During this period I was also working on other research projects, such as
Smart Topic Miner,
Garden Monitor,
CSO Portal, and slightly on
Smart Book Recommender. On 9 Oct 2019, I have been officially awarded of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.
As Research Fellow, I am currently working on: i) new technologies for classifying scientific papers according to their relevant research topics, ii) automatic development of ontologies of research areas, iii) novel tools for assessing the research landscape.
Ancient History
Originally hailing from Bari (
Apulia, which is arguably considered one of the best regions of Italy), I firstly attended the secondary school in electric and electronic systems, acquiring a wide knowledge for designing and implementing various electrical systems. During this period I also did an internship in a company developing civil and industrial systems.
In 2007, I moved from electronics to computer science, enrolling myself in Computer Systems Engineering at the Polytechnic University of Bari.
Firstly, I took my baccalaureate presenting a dissertation in Antennas and Electromagnetic Compatibility (
here the post, only Italian available) and subsequently I took my Master’s degree presenting a dissertation in Human-Computer Interaction (
here the post, Italian and English available).
