My name is Francesco Lelli and I am taking post-doctorate studies at the University of Lugano under the supervision of the Dean Mehdi Jazayeri. My research interests include Software Engineering, High Performance Computing, Grid, Web Services, Peer to Peer, and Artificial Intelligence.
I followed master studies in Computer Engineering at the University of Pisa and, after a short experience in the industry, I followed PhD studies at the University of Venice. Within that time I also worked as full time Research Associate at the Italian National Institute of Nuclear Physics (INFN) in Legnaro (Padova) and as post-doc after.
If you are curious, below you can find few more information about me and my teaching and research philosophy.

Education

• University of Venice (Ca Foscari), Venice, Italy
  Ph.D. in Computer Science (2006)
  Minor in High Performance Computing and Grid
  Dissertation: "Bringing Instruments to a Service-Oriented Interactive Grid"
  Advisors: Prof. Salvatore Orlando, Dr. Gaetano Maron
  
  
• University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy,
  Bachelor and Master Degree in Computer Engineering (2003)
  Minor in Software Engineering and Network Systems
  Dissertation: "Performance Evaluation of the Protocol MAC IEEE 802.16"
  Advisor: Prof. Luciano Lenzini
  
  
• University of Padova, Padova, Italy,
  Bachelor Student in Physics: I followed this course during the academic year 2006-2007. Thanks to my previous studies I am already close to competition but, due to my job change, I temporarily decided to interrupt such studies.
  

Employment Sketch

• 2007-Present: Post-Doc position at University of Lugano. I am participating in the research activity of the faculty under the supervision of dean Mehdi Jazayeri. I am member of SwiNG and I was the reference person for the activity that is carried out in the Nepomuk project.
• 2006-2007: Post-Doc/Research Fellowship position at Italian National institute of Nuclear Physics (INFN) Laboratory of Legnaro , I focused my research on the Run Control of the Advanced GAmma Tracking Array(AGaTA) and on the GridCC project.
• 2005-2006: Full time Research Associate position ("ex articolo 23" if you are familiar with Italian laws) at INFN Laboratory of Legnaro with focus on the research and developments of the GridCC Project and CMS experiment. In 2005 I also worked under a CERN Visiting Scientist Contract for the CMS experiment finalized to the Run Control project.
• 2003-2005: PhD Research Association at INFN Laboratory of Legnaro and CERN for the CMS experiment
• 2003: Software Engineer at Sistemi e Servizi S.r.L.
• 2002-2003: Part Time Lecturer at University of Pisa for the Cisco CCNA and "Reti di Calcolatori" master course for the Academic Years 2002 and 2003
• 1995: Internship at IEI (Istituto di Elaborazione dell' Informazione) Pisa. I was involved in the construction of web pages using HTML.

Research Statement

"Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler."
~Albert Einstein

"In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. But, in practice, there is."
~J. Snepscheut /Y. Berra

Since the beginning of my PhD I have been looking at applied research topics in order to have the possibility to integrate the outcome of my research into the real environment. I find High Performance Computing, Distributed Computing, Pervasive Systems and Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) quite intriguing and attractive, especially because the research results are often directly applicable in industrial and commercial environments. This makes the topics very concrete thus they are suitable and interesting from an academic and industrial point of view.

The integration of remote control and data collection from instruments and users were originally part of the initial Grid concept. The idea was to plug into the Grid heterogeneous and distributed devices (and desktops) as sources of information for the computational infrastructure and as actuators for the data process outcome. Unfortunately, all the developments have been concentrated on the sharing of distributed computational and storage resources. I deal with this open problem by contributing to the definition and realization of t he Instrument Element (IE), i.e., a component that provides the computational/data infrastructure with an abstraction of real instruments, and users with a more interactive interface to control them. In addition, in these years I've been trying to solve the trade-off between the necessity of universality/interoperability and performance required by any software component. Generally, in my research, I've been trying and I will keep trying to apply several different software engineering methodologies as well as statistical and mathematical models in order to prove that my work is relevant from a practical and theoretical point of view. It is worth noting that part of my research results have been developed, integrated and deployed by international Physic Projects like the Compact Muon Solenoid at CERN, the AGaTA Collaboration, and the European founded projects GridCC.

We need to point out that the emerging High Performance computing is more and more becoming a fuzzy concept composed of a huge collection of heterogeneous hardware and software with completely different needs and requirements. These devices need to be installed, configured and maintained and this scenario is complicated by the introduction of three different factors that will deeply influence the future evolution of high performance computing. (i) The need to integrate emerging tools and technologies coming from the "Web2.0 world". Systems based on this approach support architectures similar to Web services but have evolved in a more chaotic but remarkably successful fashion with service architectures that support a variety of protocols including those of Web and Grid services. (ii) The need to provide a computational service for pervasive devices. We will experience a deep interaction between pervasive computing and Distribute Computing disciplines in order to integrate instruments and devices that are more and more tiny into the existing computational infrastructure. (iii) The adoption of lambda networks will reduce the cost of communication of WAN based systems, thus forcing both a redesign of the current resource abstraction and a need to merge these new technologies with the present computational infrastructure. In this scenario the "global integration" represents the biggest challenge for future distribute computing and simplification represents the only possible way to cope with the open problems. I believe that possible solutions can be found in Cluster Computing, Autonomic, Fault Tolerant and Artificial Intelligence techniques as well as the use of Peer to Peer and Pervasive Computing based approaches. Nevertheless, I believe that the research should be driven by effective needs. Thus, I will keep trying to develop and apply my research results to concrete use cases that emerge from relevant areas.

Teaching Statement

If I hear it, I will forget it.
If I see it, I will remember it.
If I do it, I will understand it.
~Chinese Proverb

Teaching, not only represents the transfer of knowledge and information from a more experienced person to one who is searching for a more effective and enlightened way to think and act. A good teacher should show a student what is behind thoughts and things, getting him involved and fascinated. Ward says that "The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires." While Galileo believes that "you cannot teach a man anything; you can only help him to find it within himself".
In other words, I believe that the strongest way to facilitate the learning process of a student is to encourage him to think critically, equipping him with the ability to examine all the information relevant to an issue or problem and then to form an accurate conclusion.
Obviously the teaching style can not be the same for each student since different learners require different approaches based on their own learning process. Nevertheless, I believe in "teaching by personal example", trying to establish a prototype for how to think and behave. I prefer to oversee, guide and direct my students by showing how to do things encouraging them to observe and emulate the approach to the problem.
In conclusion, I believe teaching success occurs when a relationship with students of mutual respect is created. This has to be both personal and professional, even if much of the satisfaction gained from teaching comes from personal connections.