BITES 2026

Francesco Amato is Business Development Manager at Latitudo 40, an innovative Italian SME that leverages satellite data and artificial intelligence to support strategic decision-making for cities, infrastructure and territories. His work spans commercial development and international relations, collaborating closely with public administrations, companies and global partners to transform complex data into actionable solutions. He specialises in the application of Earth observation technologies for environmental risk management, with a focus on floods, wildfires, urban heat islands and hydrogeological hazards. Over the course of his career, he has represented Latitudo 40 at international events on climate tech, smart cities and the space economy, contributing to the broader adoption of satellite data as a strategic asset for more informed and resilient decision-making. His mission is to make geospatial data accessible, practical and impact-driven, helping organisations and territories anticipate challenges and seize new opportunities.

Francesco Carli is a staff scientist @ EMBL-EBI in Cambridge, working with the Saez-Rodriguez group and Open Targets. He has a multidisciplinary background spanning economics, mathematics, data science, and computational biology. He holds a B.Sc. in Economics and Social Sciences from Bocconi University and an MSc in Stochastics and Data Science from the University of Turin. His early work focused on machine learning for biomedical applications, including genetic biomarker models for renal cancer and AI-based tools for clinical decision support in intensive care. He later completed a Ph.D. at Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa, where he developed machine-learning methods to study drug-biosystem interactions across multiple biological scales, with a focus on oncological applications. His current research investigates how large language models and agentic systems can enhance computational biology workflows, particularly through rigorous benchmarking, integration with classical modeling techniques, and improved interpretability, robustness, and generalizability.

Alexander Serebrenik is Full Professor of Social Software Engineering at Eindhoven University of Technology, where he leads the Software Engineering and Technology cluster. His research focuses on the human and social aspects of software engineering, software evolution, and the impact of AI on software development. He has published extensively on how software is built, maintained, reviewed, and governed, with particular attention to the interaction between technical decisions, and human behaviour.

Vítězslav Moudrý is an ecologist with strong focus on the quality, reliability, and practical usability of spatial data for addressing contemporary environmental challenges. He received his PhD in Applied and Landscape Ecology from the Czech University of Life Sciences Prague in 2012. His research focuses on modelling species–environment relationships to better understand patterns and drivers of biodiversity across spatial scales. He advances the methodological foundations of ecological modelling by integrating remote sensing data and applying virtual ecology to develop and evaluate macroecological approaches. A complementary line of his research addresses human-altered landscapes, particularly post-mining environments, where he applies remote sensing and spatial modelling to support ecological restoration and assess recovery trajectories. In recent years, his work has increasingly focused on the use of airborne and spaceborne remote sensing for measuring and modelling terrain and vegetation structure, with particular emphasis on laser altimetry. He is particularly engaged in improving the accessibility of airborne laser scanning data across Europe, contributing to their integration at the continental scale and enabling large-scale ecosystem monitoring. In addition to his research activities, he teaches geographic information systems, laser altimetry, and global navigation satellite systems.

Jon Reades is Professor of Geographic Data Science at the Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis (CASA), University College London. His background spans Comparative Literature at Princeton, software development and data management at a New York-based start-up, and a PhD in Town Planning at UCL supervised by Sir Peter Hall and Michael Batty — a combination that has shaped an ability to translate across disciplinary boundaries, bringing computational thinking to social science questions and social science sensibilities to problems that data science alone cannot fully resolve. Before joining UCL, he held posts at King's College London and was an Affiliate Researcher at MIT's SENSEable City Lab. His research brings a critical, but computational, perspective to smart cities and big data, housing and neighbourhood change, and open, reproducible methods for geographical analysis. Recent work has examined how cities can be 'read' as text, the rise of build-to-rent housing, and gender inequalities in doctoral education.

Giuseppe Santarsiero is Associate Professor of Structural Engineering at the University of Basilicata, where he teaches and conducts research on bridges, existing infrastructure, seismic safety and durability. He is Director of the HAIRI Laboratory (Human-driven Artificial Intelligence for Resilient Infrastructure), which develops and trains AI models to improve the management of civil infrastructure. His research sits at the intersection of traditional structural engineering and cutting-edge digital methods, with a particular focus on the application of computer vision, deep learning and image analysis to bridge inspection and automated defect detection. This work is part of a broader commitment to the digitalisation of inspection procedures and the technical management of infrastructure assets. He is the scientific coordinator of the University of Basilicata research unit within the Horizon Europe REHOUSE project — a €10M initiative involving 25 partners across 8 EU countries — and has extensive experience in national research programmes including ReLUIS. He is a member of two doctoral college boards and supervises several PhD students and post-doctoral researchers. With over 100 publications in international journals and conferences, he is an active and recognised voice in the structural engineering community.

Simone Scalabrino is an Assistant Professor at the University of Molise, Italy, where he also earned his Ph.D., focusing on the automatic assessment and improvement of source code readability and understandability. His research in software engineering has resulted in more than 60 publications across international journals and conferences, three of which earned him the prestigious ACM SIGSOFT Distinguished Paper award (ICPC 2016, ASE 2017, and MSR 2019). He is the founder and director of the DEVeloper-centric Software Engineering Research group (DEVISER). Beyond his research, he regularly contributes to the international software engineering community as a member of various conference organizing and program committees, including the three top software engineering conferences: ICSE, FSE, and ASE.

Gabriella Sferra is a researcher in Botany at the University of Molise's Department of Biosciences and Territory. Her scientific work is characterized by integrating traditional and advanced methods based on bioinformatics to characterize root biology and plant responses to environmental stressors. Her research primarily focuses on the development and application of innovative methods and computational modeling to get insights into biological processes and interactions. Throughout her career, she has contributed to the development and application of computational tools for the analysis of complex biological data and has been actively involved in teaching activities in the field of botany and bioinformatics.