WP 3 lead. Experts in machine learning techniques for solar data.
The Università di Genova (UNIGE) is one of the biggest and most ancient Italian universities founded in 1481. UNIGE has one of the most valuable cultural and scientific heritage of the Mediterranean and the Italian north-western area. It is deeply interconnected with the city of Genova and its economic framework offering one-hundred and thirty-seven Bachelor’s and Master’s courses and thirty-six PhD courses in eleven fields of study across four different cities. UNIGE plays a leading role in the fields of research, innovation and technology transfer in an increasingly competitive environment at national and international level. UNIGE has taken part in one-hundred fifteen FP7 projects, one-hundred H2020 projects and thirty-five Horizon Europe projects as either participant or coordinator.
Prof. Anna Maria Massone has been senior researcher at the SPIN Institute of the Italian Research Council (CNR) and joined UNIGE in 2018 as associate professor of Numerical Analysis. She then became a full professor in 2021. She is co-leader of the ‘Methods for Image and Data Analysis (MIDA)’ group where she works at the formulation and implementation of methods in machine learning, pattern recognition and inverse problems with applications in solar physics, high energy physics, medical imaging and neuroscience. As third party in FP7 project HESPE (High Energy Solar Physics Data in Europe), she led the ‘Computation’ Work Package effort and implemented most of the imaging, spectroscopy and imaging spectroscopy methods therein. She then led the ‘Flare Prediction Algorithms’ Work Package within the H2020 project FLARECAST (Flare Likelihood and Region Eruption Forecasting) and she was co-Investigator and Work-Package Leader for the project AI-FLARES (Artificial Intelligence for the Analysis of Solar Flares Data), funded by the Italian Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica (INAF) and focused on inverse problems and machine learning for solar flare physics. She currently is the Principal Investigator for the project AIxtreme (Physics-based AI for predicting extreme weather and space weather events) funded by the Italian Fondazione Compagnia di San Paolo. She is Co-I for STIX and FOXSI, member of the RHESSI Team and member of the Space Weather Italian Community SWICO. In 2013 she has been awarded with a NASA Group Achievement Award to RHESSI Science and Data Analysis Team in recognition of sustained, outstanding scientific achievements over a full 11-year solar cycle. She is a member of the panel of the PhD Program in Mathematics and Applications at UNIGE. She has supervised or is supervising 5 PhD theses in Mathematics and she is author or co-author of 1 book and around 80 papers in refereed journals.
Prof. Michele Piana is founder and Principal Investigator of the ‘Methods for Image and Data Analysis (MIDA)’ group at UNIGE, which currently includes 12 staff members, 3 contractors, 2 post-docs and 9 PhD students. He has been coordinator for HESPE (High Energy Solar Physics Data in Europe) in FP7, WP leader for FLARECAST (Flare Likelihood and Region Eruption Forecasting) in H2020 and coordinator for the AI-FLARES (Artificial Intelligence for the Analysis of Solar Flares Data) funded by the Italian INAF. He has been awarded a NASA Group Achievement Award for RHESSI. He is Co-I for the ESA mission Spectrometer/Telescope for Imaging X-rays (STIX) and for the NASA mission Focusing Optics X-ray Solar Imager (FOXSI), member of the RHESSI Team and member of the Space Weather Italian Community (SWICO). He is a member of the panel of the National PhD Program for Artificial Intelligence in Biomedicine. He has supervised or is supervising 16 PhD theses in Mathematics and Physics and he is author or co-author of more than 100 papers in refereed journals.