My research expertise includes robotics, human-robot interaction, autonomous agent systems, Internet of Things (IoT) and Ambient Assisted Living (AAL). I am currently involved in EU coordination actions developing new benchmarks for assistive robots (METRICS/HEART-MET), and I lead OpenAAL, an open lab for AAL. I am also one of the co-investigators of the EPSRC Healthcare NetworkPlus EMERGENCE, developing the UK roadmap for assistive robotics for frailty.

I received a BSc (110/110 Cum Laude) degree in Computer Science from Bologna University, in 1999, and worked as a software developer and project manager in the software industry before returning to academia and receiving a PhD degree from University College Dublin (UCD), in 2009. Between 2009 and 2011 I was a postdoctoral researcher in UCD, where I worked in the Adaptive Information Cluster (AIC) and in the Insight Centre for Data Analytics. I have been co-principal investigator on a number of European/National projects in the area of embedded sensor systems, wireless sensor networks and intelligent buildings spaces including the EU projects FIEMSER (http://www.fiemser.eu/) and HOBNET (http://hobnet-testbeds.eu/). In 2011 I initiated the FP7 project RUBICON (Robotic UBIquitous Cognitive Network, http:/www./fp7rubicon.eu), a 2.5 million EUR project (completed in 2014) that has posed the foundations for self-adaptive ecologies of robotic and sensing devices. From 2014 to 2016 I was a Research Fellow with the Distributed Systems Group (DSG), School of Computer Science and Statistics. 

I joined Heriot-Watt University, in 2016, as Assistant Professor, and I co-direct the MSc Robotics programme. At Heriot-Watt I, set up the Robotic Assisted Living Tested, a 'Living lab', part of the UK National Robotarium, designed to facilitate design and testing of innovative and practical solutions for healthy ageing and indipendent living. I have also initiated the Cognitive Assistive Robotic Enviroment (CARE) group, with a focus on enabling IoT and robotic, autonomous and interactive systems (RAIS) to provide user-centred assisted living support.