People
Faculty Members
ANDREA CASTELLETTI
Lab Head - Full Professor
Andrea Castelletti is a professor of Natural Resources Management and Environmental Systems Analysis at Politecnico di Milano, Italy and an Academic Guest at the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, ETH Zurich, Switzerland. He received a MSc degree in Environmental Engineering and a PhD in Information Engineering from Politecnico di Milano in 1999 and 2005. He was visiting scholar at Cornell University, ETH Zurich, Lancaster University, and University of Western Australia. From 2007 to 2015 he was Adjunct Professor at the Centre for Water Research of the University of Western Australia. He is the head of the Environmental Intelligence for Global Change Lab at Politecnico di Milano.
Andrea’s research interest includes water systems planning and control under uncertainty and risk, decision-making for complex engineering systems, big environmental data analytics and smart sensing, information theory and selection for environmental decision making. He is co-author of 2 international books on integrated water resource management, more than 180 publications in international journals, book chapters and conference proceedings. In 2009 is was awarded a senior fellowship by the Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science, in 2010 an Early Career Excellence Award by the International Environmental Modelling and Software Society, in 2013 the Italy-Canada Innovation prize, in 2016 the EFARRI award, and in 2018 he was Biennial Medalist for the International Environmental Modelling and Software Society.
Dr. Castelletti serves the scientific community as the chair of the EGU Program Committees on Water policy, management and operation and member of the ASCE/EWRI Environmental and Water Resources Systems Technical Committee (since 2011). He is the past chair and current deputy chair of the IFAC Technical Committee TC8.3 on Modelling and Control of Environmental Systems (2008-2014). He is Associate Editor of Water Resources Re- search, Journal of Hydrology, Environmental Modelling and Software, and Socio-Ecological Systems Modelling.
MATTEO GIULIANI
Assistant Professor (senior)
Matteo Giuliani is assistant professor in the Environmental Intelligence Lab. He graduated with a double MSc degree in Environmental and Land Planning Engineering from Politecnico di Milano and Politecnico di Torino in 2010, and obtained the Diploma of the Alta Scuola Politecnica — V cycle in 2011. He received a PhD in Information Technology from Politecnico di Milano in 2014, after a visiting period at Penn State University (PA, USA). He was then post-doctoral research fellow and, since November 2016, he is assistant professor in the Department of Electronics Information and Bioengineering of Politecnico di Milano. From 2018 to 2020, he was Academic Guest at ETH Zurich for a collaboration with the Swiss Competence Center for Energy Research Supply of Electricity (SCCER-SoE). The primary focus of his research is the integrated management of water resources in complex engineering systems involving multiple actors and exposed to evolving multisectoral demands and global change; his main research areas include multi-objective optimization and control algorithms, decision-making under uncertainty, machine learning and multi-agent systems.
SANDRA RICART
Assistant Professor (junior)
Sandra Ricart is a junior assistant professor in the Environmental Intelligence Lab. She graduated with a MSc degree in Environmental Sciences after obtaining a BSc in Geography from University of Girona, Spain. She received a PhD in Experimental Sciences and Sustainability from University of Girona in 2014 once performed two visiting periods at Université de Pau et des Pays de l’Adour and Università degli Studi di Milano. As a postdoc researcher and visiting scholar she was at the University of Alicante, the Wageningen University & Research, the Manaaki Whenua – Landcare Research Centre in New Zealand, and the University of California Los Angeles. Her research interests include climate change risks and adaptive capacity through stakeholder analysis and behaviour modelling, together with the management and governance of water resources in socio-ecological systems from social-learning. As a human-environment geographer, she was granted in 2020 with a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Action individual fellowship. Sandra co-authored more than forty indexed publications, participated in about seventy international conferences, and participated in several international and national research projects. Since 2018 she is academic guest at the University of Alicante as lecturer in three MSc programs on natural risks, water management, and sustainable development law. In 2022 she was granted with the I3 Program Certificate of outstanding international research trajectory by the Spanish State Research Agency.
MATTEO SANGIORGIO
Assistant Professor (junior)
Matteo Sangiorgio is a junior assistant professor in the EI Lab. He received his bachelor and master degrees in Environmental Engineering from Politecnico di Milano, and has been a PhD student at the same institution from 2017 to 2020. His research mainly focuses on applying machine learning techniques to environmental systems, with special focus on forecasting and control tasks. His interests also include big data analysis and chaos theory. Matteo co-authored more than 20 scientific publications in internationals journals, books and conferences, and collaborated with several Italian and international institutions, including UC Berkeley, Cornell University and the Carnegie Institution for Science.
Research team
GUIDO ASCENSO
Post Doc Research Fellow
Guido Ascenso is a post-doctoral researcher at the EI Lab in the Department of Electronics, Information and Bioengineering at Politecnico di Milano. His academic career includes a BSc in Biomedical Engineering from Politecnico di Milano and an MSc in Sports Biomechanics from Robert Gordon University; he is currently waiting to receive his PhD in Applied Deep Learning from Manchester Metropolitan University. His current research focuses on the application of deep learning methods to model extreme events like cyclones. His research interests also include computer vision, shortcut learning, and causality.
ANDREA FICCHÌ
Post Doc Research Fellow
Andrea Ficchì is a post-doctoral researcher at the EI Lab at Politecnico di Milano. He received a MSc degree in Environmental and Land Planning Engineering from Politecnico di Milano in 2013, after an internship at IRSTEA (now INRAE) in Montpellier and a visiting period at TU Delft on real-time control of water reservoirs using ensemble weather forecasts. He received a PhD in Hydrology from University Pierre et Marie Curie (Paris) in 2017, after working as a researcher at IRSTEA in Antony (France) on the development of hydrological models across sub-daily temporal scales for flood forecasting applications. From 2017 to 2021, he has worked as part of the FATHUM project at the University of Reading and as a visiting scientist at ECMWF, contributing to the use and evaluation of a global flood prediction system (the Copernicus EMS – Global Flood Awareness System) to support humanitarian early actions across sub-Saharan Africa, especially in Mozambique and Uganda. His main research areas include hydro-meteorological forecasts, decision-making under uncertainty, forecast-based action, hydrological modelling, African hydrology, and climate teleconnections.
PAOLO GAZZOTTI
Post Doc Research Fellow
Dr. Paolo Gazzotti is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the EI Lab. He received his B.S. and M.S. in Computer Science and Engineering in the same institution. His research focuses on Integrated Assessment Models and Agent-Based Modeling techniques to assess optimal climate change mitigation policies and explore negotiation strategies in international climate agreements.
VERONICA PIURI
Post Graduate Research Fellow
Veronica Piuri is a research fellow at the EI Lab. She received her bachelor’s and master’s degree in Environmental and Land Planning Engineering from Politecnico di Milano, respectively in 2019 and 2022. Her research focuses on integrated water management strategies in arid river basins and the integration of adaptation measures for water stress management.
WEI XIA
Post Doc Research Fellow
Wei XIA is a post-doctoral researcher at the EI Lab researcher in the Department of Electronics, Information and Bioengineering at Politecnico di Milano. Before join EI lab, he is a research fellow in Industrial Systems Engineering and Management Department at National University of Singapore (NUS). He received his PhD degree in Civil and Environmental Engineering from NUS in 2020 (advisor: Distinguished Professor Christine Ann Shoemaker). His research interests are focused on the development of optimization and simulation methods for the design and management of large-scale water resources systems. He has developed a series of open-source parallel optimization tools suitable for solving large-scale complex optimization problems. The optimization tools he developed have been used to efficiently solve various water resources and environmental problems such as the automatic parameterization of complex surface-water simulation models and large-scale earth system models, hyperparameter optimization of data-driven models, the robust design of green infrastructure for flooding intervention. He also interested in the development of cutting-edge machine/deep learning algorithms and their application in the natural hazard management (such as flooding prediction, algae bloom forecasting) and water resources management.
PHD Students
WENJIN HAO
Phd student (XXXVI cycle)
TERESA BONSERIO
Phd student (XXXVIII cycle)
Teresa Bonserio is a PhD student at the EI Lab. She received her bachelor’s degree in Civil and Environmental Engineering from Politecnico di Bari in 2019 and her master’s degree in Environmental and Land Planning Engineering from Politecnico di Milano in 2021. In the same year, she obtained a double degree with Polytechnic University of Turin from taking part in the XVI cycle of Alta Scuola Politecnica. Teresa’s research will address the impact of global climate and energy policies on regional African contexts through the use of multi-scale integrated assessment models.
FILIPPO DAINELLI
Phd student (XXXVIII cycle)
Filippo Dainelli is a PhD student at the EI Lab. He received his bachelor’s degree in Environmental and Land Planning Engineering from Politecnico di Milano in 2018 and his master’s degree in Environmental Engineering from Delft University of Technology in 2020. Filippo’s research will address the feasibility of the application of the GAN (Generative Adversarial Network) learning framework for the forecast of Extra Tropical Cyclones.
DAVIDE SPINELLI
Phd student (XXXVIII cycle)
Davide Spinelli is a PhD student at the EI Lab. He received his bachelor’s degree in Automation Engineering and his master’s degree in Computer Science and Engineering from Politecnico di Milano, respectively in 2017 and 2020. Along with his master, he also obtained the Alliance4Tech certificate after visiting periods at UCL and TU Berlin. Davide’s research is performed in collaboration with the Consorzio dell’Adda and will focus on providing more efficient and resilient real-time strategic management solutions for water resources systems under changing and more challenging climate conditions.
ARIANNA LEONI
Phd student (XXXVIII cycle)
Arianna Leoni is a PhD student at the EI Lab. She received her bachelor’s and master’s degree in Environmental and Land Planning Engineering from Politecnico di Milano, respectively in 2020 and 2023. Her research focuses on the connection of global climate policies with high spatiotemporal resolution power system operations to support clean energy transition in Sub-Saharan Africa.
MARTINA MERLO
Phd student (XXXVIII cycle)
Martina Merlo is a PhD student at the EI Lab. She received her bachelor’s and master’s degree in Environmental and Land Planning Engineering from Politecnico di Milano, respectively in 2020 and 2023. Her research focuses on the definition of novel impact-based drought indices for advancing drought detection and management in order to improve the resilience of multisector systems under climate change.
WYATT ARNOLD
PhD student (XXXIX cycle)
Wyatt Arnold is a PhD student at the EI Lab. He received his MSc degree in Civil and Environmental Engineering from the University of California Davis in 2021. Prior to joining the EI Lab, Wyatt worked as a water resources engineer for the California Department of Water Resources on climate change vulnerability and adaptation planning for the State’s regional water supply system and watershed-scale multi-objective assessments of flood and drought risk. His research interests include hydro-economic modeling of multi-reservoir conjunctive use systems, optimization under uncertain non-stationarity, and formulation of robust and flexible plans for food-water-energy security and sustainability.
BRUNO INVERNIZZI
PhD student (XXXIX cycle)
GIULIO PALCIC
PhD student (XXXIX cycle)
Giulio Palcic is a PhD student at the EI Lab. He received his bachelor's degree in Civil and Environmental Engineering from the University of Trieste in 2019, and his master's degree in Environmental and Land Planning Engineering from Politecnico di Milano in 2023. His research focuses on developing multisector climate adaptation strategies for European rivers, with the aim of creating innovative tools to predict droughts and design strategies to mitigate the related impacts.
LORENZO SCARPELLINI
PhD student (XXXIX cycle)
Lorenzo Scarpellini is a PhD student at the EI Lab and IUSS Pavia. He received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Environmental and Land Planning Engineering from Politecnico di Milano in 2021 and 2023 respectively. Lorenzo’s research will address the role of financial risk hedging tools, parametric insurance in particular, in climate change adaptation and disaster risk management
EMILIANO LONGO
PhD student (XXXIX cycle)
Emiliano Longo is a PhD student at the EI Lab. He received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Environmental and Land Planning Engineering from Politecnico di Milano in 2021 and 2024 respectively. The main objective of his research is the advancement of multi-objective Reinforcement Learning for water resources management. His research topics include also natural resources management, optimal control for complex systems and climate change adaptation.
Master Students
Past theses of eiLab students are available HERE.