Young Researchers
CROSS-CUTTING ACTIVITY 5
Cross-Cutting Activity 5 (CC5) supports young researchers working in iNEST through dedicated Young Researcher Grants. These grants provide essential funding for research projects that, within Spoke 9, drive advancements in mathematics and computer science, paving the way for Digital Twin development. Moreover, dedicated funds allow young scientists to expand their teams, participate in scientific conferences and workshops, and organize initiatives to disseminate the results of their research.
Young Researchers at SISSA
Pasquale Claudio Africa
Research group: SISSA mathLab
Funded project: Towards real-time simulations for cardiovascular digital twins
Ricardo Grande Izquierdo
Research group: Mathematical Analysis, Modeling, and Applications
Funded project: Rogue Wave Forecasting
Federico Pichi
Research group: SISSA mathLab
Funded project: Surrogate Models for Scientific Machine Learning
Niccolò Tonicello
Research group: SISSA mathLab
Funded project: Physics-Informed Neural Networks for complex fluid dynamics
Pasquale Claudio Africa used his funds for a collaboration with Ivan Prusak (Ruhr-University Bochum), 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 was held at SISSA in the last week of April 2025. Additionally, Africa funded a three-month research grant for Master’s Degree student Matteo Bertocchi (Alma Mater University of Bologna). Together with Niccolò Tonicello, Federico Pichi, Prof. Michele Girfoglio, and Prof. Gianluigi Rozza, Africa also led the mini-symposium MS129: Accelerating High-Order CFD Simulations with Surrogate Modeling within the ICOSAHOM 2025 conference, which took place in Montréal, Canada, from 13th to 18th July 2025.
Ricardo Grande Izquierdo organized, together with Matteo Gallone and Beatrice Langella, a workshop titled Future perspectives on Wave Dynamics: quasi-integrability, turbulence, and rogue waves, held from 30th June to 4th July 2025 at Hotel Il Cervo in Tarvisio (UD).
Federico Pichi 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. In December 2025, he also organized a series of lectures and seminars at SISSA on surrogate modeling and scientific machine learning.
Niccolò Tonicello contributed to the PhD Summer School on Physics-Informed Neural Networks and Applications, held from 19th to 30th June 2025 at KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden.
The three researchers also actively contributed to the Innovation is Mathematics event (SISSA, 29th October 2025), where they delivered scientific presentations. They subsequently took part in the satellite event (Twinning the Future)² (CastelBrando, 30th–31st October 2025), during which they invited three experts to give talks on scientific topics related to the implementation of digital twins.
Young Researchers at the University of Padua
Mattia Fogagnolo
Department: Mathematics
Funded project: The inverse problem for the p-laplacian for Water Distribution Systems
Matteo Zavatteri
Department: Mathematics
Funded project: Neuro-Symbolic AI in Digital Twins
Mattia Fogagnolo and Matteo Zavatteri 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
Francesca Cairoli
Department: Mathematics and Geoscience
Funded project: RESGEN (Reactive Scenario Generation for Testing Resilience of Autonomous Systems)
Erica Salvato
Department: Engineering and Architecture
Funded project: DAVN (Integrated Digital Twin and AI for Coordinating Drone-Autonomous Vehicle Systems)
Using her funds, Francesca Cairoli has financed a 12-month research grant for Francesca Randone.
Erica 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.