Cross-Cutting Activity 5
Cross-Cutting Activity 5 (CC5) involves Young Researchers of the iNEST project. Through the funding provided by iNEST in the form of Young Researcher Grants, young researchers of Spoke 9 organize a wide range of initiatives, such as scientific conferences, workshops, and mini-symposia, dedicated to topics aligned with their projects. These subjects are of interest to Spoke 9, which the researchers can explore and develop further through their work within iNEST.
Young Researchers at SISSA
SISSA has four holders of Spoke 9 Young Researcher Grants:
- Pasquale Claudio Africa, from the SISSA mathLab group, working on the project “Towards real-time simulations for cardiovascular digital twins”;
- Ricardo Grande Izquierdo, from the group of Mathematical Analysis, Modeling, and Applications, working on “Rogue Wave Forecasting”;
- Federico Pichi, from the SISSA mathLab group, working on the project “Surrogate Models for Scientific Machine Learning”;
- Niccolò Tonicello, from the SISSA mathLab group as well, working on “Physics-Informed Neural Networks for complex fluid dynamics”.
Pasquale Claudio Africa used his funds for a collaboration with Ivan Prusak, Richard Schussnig (Ruhr University Bochum), and Elena Zappon (Medical University of Graz). These researchers have been invited as speakers at the mini-symposium “Towards real-time simulations for cardiovascular digital twins”, which will be held at SISSA in the last week of April. Additionally, Africa funded a three-month research grant for Master’s Degree student Matteo Bertocchi (Alma Mater University of Bologna) and plans to activate a second grant of similar duration.
Ricardo Grande Izquierdo is organizing, together with Matteo Gallone and Beatrice Langella, a workshop titled “Future perspectives on Wave Dynamics: quasi-integrability, turbulence, and rogue waves”, scheduled from 30th June to 4th July 2025 at Hotel Il Cervo in Tarvisio (UD).
Federico Pichi has sponsored and organized two conferences: the Young Applied Mathematicians Conference 2024 in Rome and the Italian meetup of the Learning on Graphs Conference 2024 in Siena. He is also planning the mini-symposium “Projection-based and data-driven reduced order modeling: bridging accuracy and efficiency” within the Coupled Problems 2025 conference, taking place in Villasimius (SU) from 25th to 28th May 2025. Additionally, he is organizing the seminar series “Surrogate Models for Scientific Machine Learning”, to be held at SISSA.
Niccolò Tonicello contributed to the PhD Summer School on Physics-Informed Neural Networks and Applications, scheduled from 19th to 30th June 2025 at KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden. Together with Pasquale Claudio Africa, Federico Pichi, Prof. Michele Girfoglio, and Prof. Gianluigi Rozza, Tonicello will also lead the mini-symposium MS129: “Accelerating High-Order CFD Simulations with Surrogate Modeling” within the ICOSAHOM 2025 conference, taking place in Montréal, Canada, from 13th to 18th July 2025.
Young Researchers at the University of Padua
At the University of Padua, there are two recipients of Spoke 9 Young Researcher Grants:
- Mattia Fogagnolo, from the Department of Mathematics and working in the field of mathematical analysis, with the project “The inverse problem for the p-laplacian for Water Distribution Systems”;
- Matteo Zavatteri, also from the Department of Mathematics and working in computer science, with the project “Neuro-Symbolic AI in Digital Twins”.
The two researchers have organized the International Workshop on Digital Twins, scheduled in Padua from the 19th to the 21st of February 2025. This scientific workshop will feature 8 invited speakers and over 30 poster presentations, contributed by both Spoke 9 partners and external universities. Additionally, both researchers have co-funded research grants with their funds: Fogagnolo has hired Raj Narayan Dhara, working on the project “Inverse problems for the p-laplacian in Water Distribution Systems and related topics”, whereas Zavatteri has hired Alberto Valese, working on “Formal methods for logical constraint integration in neural networks”.
Young Researchers at the University of Trieste
The University of Trieste has two recipients of Spoke 9 Young Researcher Grants:
- Francesca Cairoli, from the Department of Mathematics and Geoscience, working on RESGEN – “Reactive Scenario Generation for Testing Resilience of Autonomous Systems”.
- Erica Salvato, from the Department of Engineering and Architecture, with the project DAVN – “Integrated Digital Twin and AI for Coordinating Drone-Autonomous Vehicle Systems”.
Using her funds, Cairoli has financed a 12-month research grant for Francesca Randone. Salvato, on the other hand, has purchased a new drone for the UniTS Drone Lab and recruited four external collaborators: Michel El Saliby and Mauro Fatima, working until October 2024, and Alberto Trevisan and Harry Azari, working until November 2024.
