I’m a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Artificial Intelligence Research Institute (IIIA) working in the Value-Aware Artificial Intelligence (VALAWAI) project that aims at developing AI systems that are able to understand and act by a value system and explain their own behaviour or understand the behaviour of others in terms of a value system. I was a Research Scientist at Pal Robotics awarded with a Marie Skłodowska-Curie cofund fellowship in the H2020 project PRO-CARED (no.801342) which aimed at designing social robots with proactive personalised behaviour during long-lasting interactions (2022-2024). I received my PhD with a thesis entitled “Personalising robot assistance for cognitive training therapy” from the Institut de Robòtica i Informàtica Industrial (IRII) under the supervision of Dr. Guillem Alenyà and Prof. Carme Torras (2017-2022). My thesis was awarded the prestigious Georges Giralt award for the best European PhD thesis from euRobotics. Furthermore, I also won the AIHUB.CSIC prize for the best AI PhD Thesis from the AI Hub of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC). I was an Early Stage Researcher in the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Innovative Training Network (ITN) project called SOCRATES, which focused on Quality of Interaction in Eldercare.Prior to IRII, I worked at Cogisen as Artificial Intelligence lead. I was a visiting student at the University of Naples (2021) and University of Hamburg (2018-19). In 2022, I was a visiting Postdoctoral researcher at the University of Naples Federico II collaborating with Prof. Silvia Rossi.
My work focuses on creating proactive, personalised robots that can tailor their behaviour to each individual’s unique needs and preferences. Additionally, I investigate how robots can explain their decisions, helping users build clearer mental models of these systems. Ultimately, I aim to make robots more transparent and understandable, enabling users to interact confidently with technology that integrates seamlessly into their lives. I have organised workshops on topics realated to trust,ai, ethics and personalisation at HRI, RO-MAN and ICSR conferecences. I have served as guest editor of several special issues of journals such as International Journal of Social Robotics, Frontiers in Robotics and AI, Paladyn Journal of Behaviour and Interaction Studies and as associate editor at IROS, RO-MAN and ICSR.
PhD in Control, Robotics and Vision, 2022
Institut de Robotica i Informatica Industrial, CSIC-UPC
MEng in Artificial Intelligence, 2009
Sapienza, University of Rome
BSc in Computer Engineering, 2006
Sapienza, University of Rome