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)

Dr. Sandra Ricart is a junior assistant professor in the Environmental Intelligence Lab. As a human-environment geographer, she was granted in 2020 with a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Action post-doctoral fellowship to develop the MODFABE project at the EI Lab. She received her bachelor’s in Geography and master’s degree in Environmental Sciences from the University of Girona, Spain, and a Ph.D. in Experimental Sciences and Sustainability at the same institution. Her research interests include climate change perceived impacts and adaptative capacity through stakeholder analysis and behaviour modelling, together with the management and governance of water resources in socio-ecological systems from social-learning. Sandra co-authored more than thirty-five publications indexed in WoS and Scopus journals, attended more than fifty international conferences, and participated in several international and national research projects, while collaborating with universities and research centres from Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, and New Zealand. Since 2017 she is lecturer at the Masters in Planning and management of natural risks at the University of Alicante (Spain).

Research team

WYATT ARNOLD

Post Graduate Research Fellow

Wyatt Arnold is a research fellow 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.

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.

ANGELO CARLINO

Post Doc Research Fellow
Angelo Carlino is a postdoctoral researcher at the Environmental Intelligence Lab, Politecnico di Milano, and a visiting postdoctoral scholar at Natural Capital Project, Stanford University.  He received his bachelor and master in Environmental Engineering from Politecnico di Milano where he also obtained his Ph.D. in Information Technology with the dissertation “Decision-making under uncertainty for complex socio-environmental systems”.  In his research, he applies algorithms for decision-making under uncertainty and multi-objective optimization to support climate and energy policy.  He is currently working on assessing the impacts on ecosystem services of renewable power capacity expansion in Africa.

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.

ELENA MATTA

Post Doc Research Fellow
Dr. Elena Matta is a Postdoctoral Researcher @EI Lab and collegiate of the interdisciplinary research training group UWI (Urban Water Interfaces) funded by the DFG (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft) at TU Berlin. Her research interests include the interdisciplinary management of water resources in complex free-surface bodies/hydrosystems through the implementation of multi-dimensional numerical modeling, hydrological modeling and machine learning approaches, as well as the integration among them. She gained experience in management during the coordination of a master program in Water Engineering at TU Berlin, and in the framework of international research projects. Dr. Matta is co-author of more than 30 publications in international journals, book chapters, and conference proceedings.

MARCO MICOTTI

Senior research associate
Marco Micotti is a research fellow in the Environmental Intelligence Lab. He received his MSc degree in Environmental and Land Planning Engineering from Politecnico di Milano in 2006. He managed for more than 10 years the Geographical Information System of the Verbania municipality and collaborates with the EI Lab (formerly known as Natural Management group) since 2010, working on different national and international projects. In 2008-2009 he lectured System Analysis as adjunct teacher at the Department of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences – Production, Territory, Agroenergy of the University of Milan. In 2007 co-founded the innovative start-up SoftWater, targeted to bridge academic world, institutions and environmental agencies, by developing integrated solutions to support environmental policies and fostering a smart and sustainable water and natural resources management. His main research interests are related to multi-criteria analysis applied to integrated water resource management, stakeholders involvement in participatory processes, data science and gis-based web platform development.

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.

MATTEO SANGIORGIO

Post Doc Research Fellow
Matteo Sangiorgio is currently a post-doctoral researcher at 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 and Cornell University.

GUANG YANG

Post Doc Research Fellow

Guang Yang is a post-doctoral researcher at the EI Lab. He received his Ph.D. in Hydrology and Water Resources from Wuhan University (China) in 2018 and was awarded the Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation in Water Resources, China, after a visiting period at Georgia Institute of Technology (USA). From 2018 to 2020, he worked as a postdoctoral scholar in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (USA). His research focuses on multi-objective water resources operations, adaptive reservoir operations under climate change, and decision support systems based on statistical learning.

PHD Students

WENJIN HAO

Phd student (XXXVI cycle)
Wenjin Hao is an Information Technology PhD student @ EI lab from October 2020 after obtaining her master degree of Environmental Engineering at ETH Zurich. She is also an Early Stage Researcher (ESR) in the NEWAVE project aiming at innovative water governance, which is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Innovative Training Networks (ITN) of the Innovation Programme Horizon 2020 (H2020). Her research will mainly focus on managing urban water demand at multiple spatio-temporal scales across heterogeneous urban contexts in European countries. She is interested in applying machine learning and data mining to develop data-driven models for modelling urban water demand, and analyzing how water governance decisions propagate across sectors and scales.

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.

Visiting PHD Students

XIAOXING ZHANG

China Agricultural University

Xiaoxing Zhang is a visiting PhD student from the College of Water Resources & Civil Engineering, China Agricultural University. She received her MSc degree from Sichuan University. She is interested in water resource management under uncertainties. Now her research mainly focuses on optimal agricultural water resource allocation under multi-uncertainties in arid and semi-arid areas.

Master Students

IRENE GALBIATI

Master student

ARIANNA LEONI

Master student

MARTINA MERLO

Master student

GIULIO PALCIC

Master student

Past theses of eiLab students are available HERE.