I am Dr. Marco Raglianti
phd / softwareenthusiast / computerscientist /
revealer / researcher / developer /
simracer / musicenduser / wannabephotographer /
tagdisliker ... andacouplemore
Feel free to explore some of the details of my professional activities and personal interests around here.
You will have a hard time to find my unwilling footprints on social profiles, but you can try...
By the way: I don't drink coffee, to someone this seems a useful hint on my personality.
About My Work
I am currently a Postdoctoral Fellow in Software Engineering at the Faculty of Informatics, Università della Svizzera Italiana (USI), in the beautiful city of Lugano - Switzerland. I work as Research Assistant in the Reverse Engineering, Visualization, Evolution Analysis Lab - REVEAL research group. The head of the lab is Prof. Dr. Michele Lanza, founder of the REVEAL research group and former director of the Software Institute.
My main research interests include software engineering, software development and its lifecycle, the software documentation landscape, software visualization, software developers' communities, and machine learning applied to software engineering.
I have been Teaching Assistant for various Bachelor and M. Sc. courses at USI and co-supervisor of Bachelor and Master students' theses works.
About Me
I have many interests linked to software development and its tools. I am proficient with Python, Java, and Pharo (a SmallTalk dialect and IDE, with serious 80s' good vibes). I enjoyed programming in C++ and Assembler in my youth. I have a general tendency to solve problems by coding solutions that can adapt to new scenarios (because I'm lazy, if this makes sense). Sometimes a simple browser game is a good excuse to develop a piece of software to automate the decision making process. This usually stops the fun in the game and transfers it in developing the tool.
I like to play different computer games but I'm particularly fond of simulations. Most of all racing and flying simulations. There's some magic in replicating the real world, every year more faithfully.
I've had my fair share of interests like photography and music but I would describe them as on/off short term passions.
Education
| PhD in Informatics | Università della Svizzera italiana, Lugano, Switzerland | |
| Thesis: “Mapping and Reifying the Software Documentation Landscape” | Advisor: Prof. Dr. Michele Lanza | |
| Visiting Graduate Research Trainee | McGill University, Montreal, Canada | |
| McGill Software Technology Lab | Co-advisor: Prof. Dr. Martin Robillard | |
| M.Sc. in Computer Science | 110/110 (Cum Laude) | University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy |
| Thesis: “Surprise bayesiana in un modello bio-ispirato di visione bottom-up. Un'implementazione real-time in CUDA per SABIAN.” | ||
| Bachelor in Computer Science | 110/110 (Cum Laude) | University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy |
| Thesis: “plab: un sistema unificato per l'utilizzo di moduli CAMAC e VME nella data acquisition per la fisica delle alte energie.” | ||
Teaching Assistant
| Academic Year | University | Level | Course Name | Instructor(s) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020/2021 | USI | MSc | S&DE Atelier: Design 101 | Lanza Michele |
| 2020/2021 | USI | MSc | Engineering of Domain Specific Languages | Mocci Andrea |
| 2020/2021 | USI | BSc | Software Atelier 4: Software Engineering Project | Mocci Andrea |
| 2021/2022 | USI | MSc | S&DE Atelier: Design 101 | Lanza Michele, Cleve Anthony |
| 2021/2022 | USI | MSc | Engineering of Domain Specific Languages | Mocci Andrea |
| 2021/2022 | USI | BSc | Software Atelier 4: Software Engineering Project | Mocci Andrea |
| 2022/2023 | USI | MSc | S&DE Atelier: Design 101 | Minelli Roberto |
| 2022/2023 | USI | MSc | Engineering of Domain Specific Languages | Mocci Andrea |
| 2022/2023 | USI | BSc | Software Atelier 4: Software Engineering Project | Mocci Andrea |
| 2023/2024 | USI | MSc | S&DE Atelier: Design 101 | Lanza Michele |
| 2023/2024 | USI | BSc | Software Atelier 4: Software Engineering Project | Mocci Andrea |
Co-supervisor
| Academic Year | Level | Student | Supervisor |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021/2022 | Bachelor Project | Edoardo Riggio | Lanza Michele |
| 2022/2023 | Master Thesis | Tommaso Rodolfo Masera | Lanza Michele |
| 2022/2023 | Master Thesis | Joseph Romeo | Lanza Michele |
| 2023/2024 | Bachelor Project | Jeferson Morales Mariciano | Lanza Michele |
| 2023/2024 | Master Thesis | Mattia Giannaccari | Lanza Michele |
| 2024/2025 | Bachelor Project | Stipe Peran | Lanza Michele |
| 2024/2025 | Bachelor Project | Mehmet Fatih Tekin | Lanza Michele |
| 2024/2025 | Master Thesis | Mohammad Bin Yousuf | Baysal Olga |
| 2025/2026 | Master Thesis | Francesco Casarella | Michele Lanza |
| 2025/2026 | Master Thesis | Luca Pinciroli | Michele Lanza |
| 2025/2026 | Master Thesis | Simone Lesinigo | Michele Lanza |
| 2025/2026 | Bachelor Project | Mattia Palladino | Michele Lanza |
Tools
DwarvenMail is a Python application to scrape GitHub and extract information about projects' README files and their history. DwarvenMail supports the analysis of documentation sources constituting the documentation landscape of a software system. It features an object-oriented domain model to facilitate the extraction of insights from exploration. DwarvenMail also supports manual inspection, link extraction and classification from README files.
DiscOrDance is a bot, a scraper, and a visualization tool I developed in Pharo. It allows live inspection of an instance of a Discord server with a set of pre-defined views and the possibility to define custom ones. It is targeted at understanding and progressively discover information about the community, the server structure, and conversations between developers on Discord. DiscOrDance is available on GitHub.
Vizor is a graph visualization and interactive exploration library I co-developed with Aron Fiechter. With Vizor you can create graphs of objects, map metrics to the nodes and edges representing such objects, select entities manually or programmatically, spawn new subgraphs to refine your exploration, choose how to layout entities on the canvas, leverage predefined view specifications, create custom ones to visualize a subset of the nodes and edges, and much more.
Co-supervised
CoDi is an accessible and user-friendly REST microservice that can automate the disambiguation of a set of instant messages to form conversations by leveraging state-of-the-art machine learning algorithms.
CoDi's source code is publicly available on GitHub. (LINK)
CoDi was originally developed by Edoardo Riggio as a Bachelor Project I co-supervised.
Drifter is an interactive explorer of Design-Implementation-Documentation drift (DID-drift) in GitHub's Java projects. Drifter presents various data visualizations about method coverage and detailedness in UML documentation, relationships between UML artifacts and source code, and file-level and project-level evolutionary analysis of UML documentation coverage.
Drifter was originally developed by Joseph Romeo in his Master Thesis that I co-supervised.
Publications
| André, M., Raglianti, M., Serbout, S., Cleve, A., & Lanza, M. (2026). PoolinGH: Fast, Efficient, and Robust GitHub Repository Mining. Proceedings of MSR 2026 (Mining Software Repositories), in press, ACM. | ||
| André, M., Raglianti, M., Serbout, S., Cleve, A., & Lanza, M. (2025). An Empirical Study on Database Usage in Microservices. arXiv pre-print (under review at the Journal of Systems and Software, Elsevier). | ||
| Giannaccari, M., Raglianti, M., & Lanza, M. (2025). Skylines: Visualizing Object-Oriented Software Systems Through Class Contours. Proceedings of VISSOFT 2025 (Working Conference on Software Visualization), pages 64–68, IEEE. | ||
| Armenti, C., Raglianti, M., & Lanza, M. (2025). Sonifying and Visualizing the Heartbeat of Evolving Software Systems. Proceedings of VISSOFT 2025 (Working Conference on Software Visualization), pages 1–12, IEEE. | ||
| De Rycke, M., André, M., Raglianti, M., Cleve, A., & Lanza, M. (2025). Visualizing Data Access Traces in Microservices Using Animated Heat Treemaps. Proceedings of VISSOFT 2025 (Working Conference on Software Visualization), pages 74–78, IEEE. | ||
| André, M., Raglianti, M., Cleve, A., & Lanza, M. (2025). Visualizing and Exploring Data Access in Microservices Using Interactive Treemaps. Proceedings of VISSOFT 2025 (Working Conference on Software Visualization), pages 36–46, IEEE. | ||
| Pilone, A., Raglianti, M., Lanza, M., Kon, F. & Meirelles, P. (2025). Automatically Augmenting GitHub Issues with Informative User Reviews. Proceedings of ICSME 2025 (International Conference on Software Maintenance and Evolution), pages 418–429, IEEE. | ||
| André, M., Raglianti, M., Cleve, A., & Lanza, M. (2025). DENIM: Exploring Data Access in Microservices. Proceedings of ICSME 2025 (International Conference on Software Maintenance and Evolution), pages 900–904, IEEE. | ||
| Gronchi, G., Raglianti, M., Lazzeri, A., Giovannelli, F., & Viggiano, M. P. (2025). Can Integrated Information Predict Consciousness Using Transition Matrices of Brain States? An Exploratory Study. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 32(5-6), pages 224–244, Imprint Academic. | ||
| André, M., Raglianti, M., Cleve, A., & Lanza, M. (2025). Understanding Data Access in Microservices Applications Using Interactive Treemaps. Proceedings of ICPC 2025 (International Conference on Program Comprehension), pages 216–220, IEEE. | ||
| Giannaccari, M., Raglianti, M., & Lanza, M. (2025). Code Refactoring in Virtual Reality. Proceedings of IDE 2025 (Workshop on Integrated Development Environments), pages 7–12, IEEE. | ||
| Romeo, J., Raglianti, M., Nagy, C., & Lanza, M. (2025). UML is Back. Or is it? Investigating the Past, Present, and Future of UML in Open Source Software. Proceedings of ICSE 2025 (International Conference on Software Engineering), pages 2342–2354, IEEE/ACM. | ||
| Giannaccari, M., Raglianti, M., & Lanza, M. (2024). Manipulating VR-Native User Interfaces for Software Visualization Customization. Proceedings of VISSOFT 2024 (Working Conference on Software Visualization), pages 111–115, IEEE. | ||
| Romeo, J., Raglianti, M., Nagy, C., & Lanza, M. (2024). Capturing and Understanding the Drift Between Design, Implementation, and Documentation. Proceedings of ICPC 2024 (International Conference on Program Comprehension), pages 382–386, IEEE/ACM. | ||
| Orrei, V., Raglianti, M., Nagy, C., & Lanza, M. (2023). Contribution-Based Firing of Developers? Proceedings of ESEC/FSE 2023 (Joint European Software Engineering Conference and Symposium on the Foundations of Software Engineering), pages 2062–2066, ACM. | ||
| Raglianti, M., Nagy, C., Minelli, R., Lin, B., & Lanza, M. (2023). On the Rise of Modern Software Documentation. Proceedings of ECOOP 2023 (European Conference on Object Oriented Programming), 43, pages 1–24, Dagstuhl Publishing. | ||
| Riggio, E., Raglianti, M., & Lanza, M. (2023). Conversation Disentanglement As-a-Service. Proceedings of ICPC 2023 (31st International Conference on Program Comprehension), pages 59–63, IEEE. | ||
| Raglianti, M., Nagy, C., Minelli, R., & Lanza, M. (2022). DiscOrDance: Visualizing Software Developers Communities on Discord. Proceedings of ICSME 2022 (38th International Conference on Software Maintenance and Evolution), pages 474–478, IEEE. | ||
| Raglianti, M., Nagy, C., Minelli, R., & Lanza, M. (2022). Using Discord Conversations as Program Comprehension Aid. Proceedings of ICPC 2022 (30th International Conference on Program Comprehension), pages 597–601, ACM. | ||
| Raglianti, M. (2022). Topology of the Documentation Landscape. ICSE 2022 Companion (44th International Conference on Software Engineering Companion), pages 297–299, ACM. | ||
| Raglianti, M., Minelli, R., Nagy, C., & Lanza, M. (2021). Visualizing Discord Servers. Proceedings of VISSOFT 2021 (9th Working Conference on Software Visualization), pages 150–154, IEEE. | ||
| Gronchi, G., Raglianti, M., & Giovannelli F. (2021). Network Theory and Switching Behaviors: A User Guide for Analyzing Electronic Records Databases. Future Internet, 13(9), 228, MDPI. | ||
| Cianferotti, L., Parri, S., Gronchi, G., Marcucci, G., Cipriani, C., Pepe, J., Raglianti, M., Minisola, S., & Brandi, M. L. (2018). Prevalence of Chronic Hypoparathyroidism in a Mediterranean Region as Estimated by the Analysis of Anonymous Healthcare Database. Calcified Tissue International, 103(2), pages 144–150, Springer. | ||
| Gronchi, G., Raglianti, M., Noventa, S., Lazzeri, A., & Guazzini, A. (2016). Modeling the Overalternating Bias with an Asymmetric Entropy Measure. Frontiers in Psychology, 7, 1027, Frontiers. | ||
| Corradi, F., Zambrano, D., Raglianti, M., Passetti, G., Laschi, C., & Indiveri, G. (2014). Towards a neuromorphic vestibular system. Transactions on Biomedical Circuits And Systems, 8(5), pages 669–680, IEEE. | ||
| Passetti, G., Corradi, F., Raglianti, M., Zambrano, D., Laschi, C., & Indiveri, G. (2013). Implementation of a neuromorphic vestibular sensor with analog VLSI neurons. Proceedings of BioCAS 2013 (Biomedical Circuits and Systems Conference), pages 174–177, IEEE. | ||
| Gronchi, G., & Raglianti, M. (2009). Modelling positive and negative recency effects with dynamically changing bias. Proceedings of the Joint Annual Convention of the Society for Mathematical Psychology and the European Mathematical Psychology Group (Amsterdam, 1–4 August). |
Workshop Papers
| Giannaccari, M., & Raglianti, M. (2025). Evolution-Resilient Class Contours. Proceedings of BENEVOL 2025 (The 24th Belgium-Netherlands Software Evolution Workshop). Enschede, NL. 17–18 November 2025. | ||
| Raglianti, M. (2022). Evolution of Crowd-Sourced Documentation in Developers Discord Conversations. Proceedings of BENEVOL 2022 (The 21st Belgium-Netherlands Software Evolution Workshop). Mons, BE. 12–13 September 2022. |
PhD Thesis
| Raglianti, M. (2025). Mapping and Reifying the Software Documentation Landscape. PhD Thesis, Università della Svizzera italiana, Lugano, Switzerland, 2025. |
Presentations
| SI Seminars 2025 | Seminar Talk | Dataset Not Anonymized, Reject. A Personal Account of Ethics, Privacy, and Anonymization Issues in SE Research. | |
| ICSE 2025 | Paper Presentation | UML is Back. Or is it? Investigating the Past, Present, and Future of UML in Open Source Software. | |
| VISSOFT 2024 | Paper Presentation | Manipulating VR-Native User Interfaces for Software Visualization Customization. | |
| Montreal/Ottawa Canada May–July 2024 |
Invited Presentations | Mapping and Reifying the Documentation Landscape. | |
| ICPC 2024 | Paper Presentation | Capturing and Understanding the Drift Between Design, Implementation, and Documentation. | |
| ESEC/FSE 2023 | Paper Presentation | Contribution-based Firing of Developers? | |
| ECOOP 2023 | Paper Presentation | On the Rise of Modern Software Documentation. | |
| ICPC 2023 | Paper Presentation | Conversation Disentanglement As-a-Service. | |
| SI Seminars 2023 | Seminar Talk | Research Code as Infrastructure. | |
| ICSME 2022 | Paper Presentation | DiscOrDance: Visualizing Software Developers Communities on Discord. | |
| BENEVOL 2022 | Presentation | Evolution of Crowd-Sourced Documentation in Developers Discord Conversations. | |
| CHOOSE Forum 2022 | Presentation | Documentation Landscape and its Evolution. | |
| ICSE 2022 | Doctoral Symposium | Topology of the Documentation Landscape. | |
| ICPC 2022 | Paper Presentation | Using Discord Conversations as Program Comprehension Aid. | |
| SI Seminars 2021 | Seminar Talk | Visualizing Discord Servers - Definitely not a Virtual Conference Video Replay. | |
| VISSOFT 2021 | Paper Presentation | Visualizing Discord Servers. |
Service
Organization
Journal Reviewer
Conference Program Committee Member
Contacts
If you need to contact me you can send an email to
My office is located in Via La Santa 1, 6962 Lugano, Switzerland (Block D, 3rd floor, room D3.05).