Spotlight Seminars on AI – Spring 2026

30/04/2026 - 29/05/2026

The Italian Association for Artificial Intelligence is pleased to announce the Spring 2026 program of the Spotlight Seminars on AI.

The aim of the seminars is to illustrate, explore and discuss current scientific challenges, trends, and possibilities in all branches of our articulated research field. The seminars will be held virtually (https://www.youtube.com/c/AIxIAit), on a monthly basis, by leading Italian researchers as well as by top international scientists. The seminars are mainly aimed at a broad audience interested in AI research, and they are also included in the Italian PhD programme in Artificial Intelligence; indeed, AIxIA warmly encourages the attendance of young scientists and PhD students.

The “Spring 2026” edition features 2 seminars:

  • Diego Calvanese, Free University of Bolzen-Bolzano, Italy

    • April, 30 2026 – 5.00pm (CEST)
    • Title: TBA
    • Abstract: TBA
    • Bio: Diego Calvanese received a PhD from Sapienza University of Rome in 1996.  He is the author of more than 350 refereed publications, including ones in the most prestigious international journals and conferences in Artificial Intelligence and Databases, with more than 33000 citations and an h-index of 72, according to Google Scholar. He has served in over 150 program committee roles for international events, and is/has an associate editor of Artificial Intelligence and of JAIR.  In 2012-2013 he has been a visiting researcher at TU Vienna as Pauli Fellow of the “Wolfgang Pauli Institute”.  He has been the program chair of PODS 2015 and KR 2020 and the general chair of ESSLLI 2016. He has been nominated EurAI Fellow in 2015 and ACM Fellow in 2019.
  • Fabrizio Silvestri, Sapienza University, Italy
    • May, 29 2026– 5.00pm (CEST)
    • Title: TBA
    • Abstract: TBA
    • Bio: Fabrizio Silvestriis a Full Professor and the coordinator of the Ph.D. in Data Science, at Dipartimento di Ingegneria informatica, automatica e gestionale (DIAG) of the University of Rome, La Sapienza. His research interests lie in Artificial Intelligence, and in particular, Fabrizio Silvestri deals with machine learning applied to web search problems and natural language processing. He is the author of more than 150 papers in international journals and conference proceedings. It holds nine industrial patents. He is the holder of the “test-of-time” award at the ECIR 2018 conference for an article published in 2007. He is the holder of three best paper awards and other international awards. Fabrizio Silvestri spent eight years abroad in industrial research laboratories (Yahoo! and Facebook). At Facebook AI, Fabrizio Silvestri has directed research groups to develop artificial intelligence techniques to combat malicious actors who use the Facebook platform for malicious purposes (hate speech, misinformation, terrorism, etc.) Fabrizio Silvestri has a Ph.D. in computer science awarded by the University of Pisa with a thesis entitled: “High-Performance Issues in Web Search Engines: Algorithms and Techniques.”