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My (academic) life at a glance

I am a Post Doctoral Research Fellow at Plymouth University, UK, where I work as a member of the Adaptive Behaviour and Cognition Research Group, within the Centre for Robotics and Neural Systems, led by Prof. Angelo Cangelosi.

Most of my work is currently dedicated to VALUE, a RCUK Cognitive Systems Foresight Project coordinated by our university. My role within this project consists in designing a cognitive architecture for humanoid robots (the iCub robot being the reference platform) able to account for phenomena related to visual memory observed during experiments with human subjects.

My Ph.D. work, sponsored by the U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research, was focused on the use of Evolutionary Robotics and Multi-Agent Systems design methodologies for the development of autonomous controllers for Micro-Unmanned Aerial Vehicles dealing with . My research has demonstrated, both on computer simulations and physical robotics platforms, how this approach can be successfully applied to the domain of autonomous aerial robotics.

In the past I carried out Artificial Life research, aiming to obtain a better understanding about the role played by attention and motivation in humans and animals. The investigation has been performed studying the behaviour of artificial organisms, living in computer simulated environments and dealing with complex ecological scenarios in which the ability to focus on some specific elements of the environment (based on their situation-based “motivational status”) was crucial for their survival.

Main research interests

My research interests span almost every area of Artificial Intelligence, with a particular emphasis on Machine Learning (neural networks, evolutionary algorithms, self-organising maps), Autonomous Robotics, Multi-Agent Systems and Cognitive Modelling.

My background

I was born in Sassuolo (MO), Italy, on August 1982 and I spent the first part of my life living in a small nearby town named Roteglia (RE). I graduated (B.Sc.) in Economics, Networks, and Information at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia in 2004. From the same university I was awarded a M.Sc. in Economics and Managements of Networks and Innovation in 2007 (with a master thesis supervised by Prof. Roberto Serra). Before moving to Plymouth, UK for my PhD I spent a few months in Rome, working at the Laboratory of Artificial Life and Autonomous Robotics (LARAL), within the National Research Council’s Institute of Cognitive Sciences and Technologies (ISTC-CNR), under the guidance of Prof. Domenico Parisi. In 2010 I spent 5 months as a visiting student at the Laboratory of Intelligent Systems (LIS), directed by Prof. Dario Floreano, within the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL). Looking for new stimulating challenges, in 2012 I decided to leave the academia, going back to Italy and start working in the private sector.

Miscellaneous

During my (rare) spare time I enjoy reading books (on Anobii you can find a virtual representation of my bookshelf) and magazines, geeking around some useless hi-tech gadgets, doing watching sports (football and basketball are by far my favourite ones), playing cards (I used to play Texas Hold’Em poker at semi-professional level), writing random essays (mostly in Italian) on my personal blog, attending cultural events, tasting cigars (either Cuban puros or Italian Toscano), and doing a wide range of additional activities targeted to keep my brain as busy as possible at any given time. Since 2011 I am the proud father of an astonishingly beautiful little boy named Samuel John.

How to contact me

If there is something interesting that you would like to discuss, you can get in touch with me in several different ways. The cheapest and most effective one is probably using Skype, adding me to your contact list as fabio.ruini (please, write a short introductory message if you decide to follow this route). Alternatively, good old-fashioned emails sent at fabio@fabioruini.eu should do the job.

Social networks

I am also quite actively present on some of the most popular social networks. In addition to those listed above, you can find me on Facebook (where I also take care of the official page of the Italian Association for Artificial Intelligence), Twitter, last.fm, LinkedIn, and Mendeley.

Professional and scientific memberships

I am or have been member of several professional and scientific organisations. Amongst them: IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers), IEEE Computational Intelligence Society, INNS (International Neural Networks Society), and AI*IA (Italian Association for Artificial Intelligence).