Vincenzo LOIA | Curriculum

Vincenzo Loia obtained a degree in Information Sciences from the University of Salerno in 1985, and a PhD in Computer Science in 1989 from the Université Pierre & Marie Curie Paris VI, France. He is currently serving as full professor of computer science at the University of Salerno, where he held the position of researcher from 1989 to 2000, and as associate professor from 2000 to 2004. From the beginning of his career he has shown a deep research interest in the use of innovative approaches for solving complex problems through new software design and programming paradigms as agent and multi-agent systems; in the design and testing of systems for approximate reasoning, through the synergistic use of standard semantic technologies, description logic and Fuzzy Logic; in the definition of original conceptual data analysis methodologies for the extraction of knowledge from unstructured resources; in the creation of decision support systems conveyed by artificial intelligence models, cognitive architectures, computational intelligence and granular computing.
The pillars that characterize his scientific research over the years have found confirmation in various application domains, from the medical one to the legal one, and in the last ten years in the field of cybersecurity. Precisely in this last area he demonstrates his great predisposition for multidisciplinarity, coordinating the scientific committee of the "Multidisciplinary Observatory for the fight against organized crime and terrorism" which implements a continuous scientific research activity applied to the thematic areas of Computational Intelligence to combat terrorist activities spread on the Web and Deep Web, in support of information analysis projects for crimes under the jurisdiction of the DNAA (National Anti-Mafia and Anti-Terrorism Directorate ). DNAA is an Italian judicial body within the Prosecutor General's Office at the Supreme Court of Cassation. It coordinates investigations into organized crime and terrorism, managing district anti-mafia directorates (DDA) nationwide to ensure cohesive prosecution. This experience allowed him to coordinate the project financed by the Presidency of the Council of Ministers for the implementation of a system that supports the Intelligence Analyst in searching for information on the web thanks to the collection, indexing and structuring of open sources. President of the SERICS Foundation (Security and rights in the cyber space https://serics.eu/ ) expression of the Extended Partnership (projects financed by the PNRR EU with 118 million of euro) on line 7, the one dedicated to cybersecurity, new technologies and protection of rights, of which the University of Salerno and national hub. In this project he is Principal Investigator of the spoke on combating disinformation as a tool to facilitate the work of the intelligence analyst.
Furthermore, his skills are used to support research related to the fourth industrial revolution as demonstrated by the scientific responsibility and participation of national projects, on the topic of smart manufacturing (Leonardo 4.0 - €10M), and international projects, on the topic of cyber physicals systems (CPS4EU - €100M).
Finally, both in the planning field and in scientific research activities he has demonstrated notable team building skills by aggregating heterogeneous skills around original and innovative ideas. All this is demonstrated by the large number of co-authorships, on scientific publications, with colleagues from other scientific-disciplinary sectors and by the collaborations established in the context of research and development projects, with corporate partners and departments of scientific areas, even different ones from Information Technology.
Concerning editorial experiences:
SPRINGER
Editor-in-Chief and Founder of the international journal “Ambient Intelligence and Humanized Computing” (Cite score 11.8, IF 7.104), Springer-Verlag; (from the birth of this journal in 2009 to 2024).
Editor-in-Chief and Founder of the international book series “Big and Integrated Artificial Intelligence” Springer-Verlag (from 2020).
Assistant Editor, Managing Editor, Editor-in-Chief, Editor Responsible for Special Issues for international journal “Soft Computing” (Cite score 8.1, IF 2.5), Springer-Verlag (from 1990 to 2024).
Editor-in-Chief of the international journal “Evolutionary Intelligence”, (Cite score 7.4, IF 2.6),
Springer-Verlag (from 2018 to 2025);
World Academic Press
Editor-in-Chief Journal of Uncertain Systems, (Cite score 2.4, SJR 0.422) World Scientific Connect (from 2021)
IEEE (biennial position taken during 1995-2005)
Associate Editor for IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics;
Associate Editor for IEEE Transactions on Industrial Informatics;
Associate Editor for IEEE Transactions on Fuzzy Systems;

He has held numerous roles within the IEEE Computational Intelligence Society, including:
- Chair of Emergent Technologies Technical Committee (ETTC) - Chair of Task Force “Intelligent Agents”,
- Chair of Task Force “Ambient Intelligence”,
- Chair of IEEE CIS Italian Chapter,
- Vice-Chair IEEE Intelligent Systems Applications Technical Committee.

He has produced around 450 scientific works published in international conference proceedings, book chapters, international journals as well as monographs (Annex 1). His H-index is 49. In the last ten years he has been present as a Committee Member in over 40 conferences of the IEEE Society. He has been a keynote speaker at various international conferences held in Europe, the USA, Taiwan, China, Japan and South Korea.

prof. Loia has participated in more than 20 research projects, and, in recent years, he has been Scientific Director on the following projects:
- HABITAT - Port traffic optimization system - project amount €15M
- Innovative tools and solutions to support the maintenance management of electricity networks in the presence of strong penetration of renewable energy generators - project amount €5.6M
- New paradigms and Technologies for Collective Knowledge in the E-Society - project amount €4M
- LEONARDO 4.0 - project amount €10M.

He was also Auditor in various MIUR Committees (JTI ARTEMIS, Large Strategic Projects (GPS), Auditor art. 12 pursuant to Ministerial Decree 593/2000, Projects art. 9/6 Law 297/1999), EU FP7 Committees, Auditor of research projects for the People's Republic of China Hong Kong region.

Institutional roles and activities (University of Salerno)
prof. Loia has held various institutional roles at the University of Salerno:
- Director of the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science (DMI) (from 2006 to 2009);
- Director of the Department of Computer Science (DI) (from 2012 to 2016);
- Director of the Department of Business Sciences – Management & Innovation Systems (DISA-MIS) (from 2015 to 2019).
- Coordinator of the Board of Department Directors (from 2014 to 2017);
- Member of the Academic Senate of the University of Salerno (from 2016 to 2019).
- Scientific Manager of the multidisciplinary Observatory for the fight against organized crime and terrorism, established between the University of Salerno and the National Anti-Mafia and Anti-Terrorism Directorate (DDNA) (from 2018 to 2022).
-President of CUR Campania (Regional Coordination Committee of Campania Universities) (from 2020 to 2023)
-Scientific manager for UNISA of the “Quantum Valley” project financed by the Campania Region with 100 million euros.
- Rector of the University of Salerno (from 2019 to 2025).
It is currently:
- Coordinator of mobility, teaching and research programs in the fields of artificial intelligence, mathematics and computer science, international cooperation with the National University of Tainan, Taiwan (since 2009).
- President of the SERICS Foundation (from 2022).
- Principal Investigator (PI) Spoke 2 "Disinformation & Fake News" Project PNRR SERICS.
-Member of the Steering Committee and coordinator of the technical-scientific committee of the Teledife-Unisa Observatory for cybersecurity (from 2023).
- Member of IGF Italy Committee, established at the Department for Digital Transformation of the Presidency of the Council of Ministers (from 2024).
- Principal Investigator for the Dept Scienze Aziendali, Management e Innovation Systems (DISAMIS) of the project SINTESI (Sistemi Cyber-fisici Intelligenti e Sicuri per la Sanità, l'Industria e la Società) - PON RIC 27, founded with Euro 1.660.000

Teaching activity
During his career, prof. Loia has held numerous teaching positions in various degree courses at the University of Salerno, including Fundamentals of Computer Science, Agent Systems, Semantic Web, Methodologies and Tools for It Project/Service Management, Safe Systems, Situation Awareness Systems, Safe and Awareness Systems, Cognitive Defense Systems, Information Disorder and Global Security, Basic cyber security and cyber intelligence techniques.
He has also been invited as a Visiting Professor to degree courses, masters and training seminars at prestigious national and international universities.