Cesare Furlanello received his degree in Mathematics at the University of Padua, Italy, in 1986. He is at Fondazione Bruno Kessler (Centre for Scientific and Technological Research of Trento) since 1987, now a Senior Researcher. He is currently leader of the MPBA Project (previously the ITC-IRST Neural Network for Complex Data Analysis Project, since 1995).

His main research interests are in the applications of machine learning methods to medical and environmental data.

He designed and managed many studies and projects involving interdisciplinary collaboration with life science researchers. He was Project manager at IRST for the National Bioelectronics Project (1991-94). He is currently project manager of several national or regional research projects in the field of Predictive Models applied to Environmental and Medical data Analysis. These studies combine existing and new methods from statistical machine learning methods with new sw infrastructures for data collection, management and distribution of the resulting models. The most recent research is directed to applications in functional genomics.

Basic and applied studies have been developed at the MPBA group with colleagues in other institutions on vector-borne disease mapping, wildlife epidemiology, traffic safety, landscape risk analysis. In order to support these studies, CF has actively contributed to the development of computational methods, supporting the development of open source geoinformatics (GIS GRASS, WebGIS) and recently grid sw (BioDCV). Since 2002, he has contributed to the development of predictive classification models and gene selection procedures for molecular diagnostics, in collaboration with national and international centres of excellence in molecular oncology. He is an investigator in two projects of AIRC, including the development of the Italian integrated platform for bioinformatics, with the IFOM-FIRC institute.

Several of the systems realized in experimental studies are now data management infrastructures for public agencies: MITRIS (Trentino and Friuli-VG), UXB-TN (Trentino), FaunaTN and FaunaBL (Trentino and Belluno) are the largest. The spinoff company MPA Solutions is mantaining these systems and developing WebGIS technologies with predictive modeling functions.

CF was Scientific secretary of the GNCB-CNR school on Neural Networks for Signal Processing (Trento 1989) and of several other workshops on Applications of Machine Learning and Neural Networks. In September 2008, he was Local Conference Chair of the MGED11 International Workshop of the MGED Society (in its Advisory Board since 2007). Lecturer on Neural Network and Statistics at Master School of Advanced Information Science of Salerno University. Chairman of Session Theory 1 at IEEE NNSP-95 Cambridge MA, 1995. Member of the Scientific Board of the Multiple Classifier Systems series of conferences. Invited participant in the Machine Learning and Neural Networks Program of the Newton Institute of Mathematical Science, Cambridge UK, 1998. Member of the Italian Neural Network Society (serving in its Scientific Board 1991-2005), of the International Association for Pattern Recognition.

Invited lectures (a selection): NATO-ASI school Learning with Ensemble models (Vietri 2002), the ECEM/EAML Conference (Bled 2004), at the Int. BCB-Workshop on Machine Learning in Bioinformatics (Oct. 2005, Berlin), Int. School "The analysis of patterns" (Nov. 2005, Erice), "Predictive modeling on spatio-temporal patterns" (April 2007, Univ. Bristol), and "Signature Stability Analysis" (Nov 2007, Silver Springs, FDA).

He has been supervisor of 30 graduate or postgraduate theses for the universities of Trento (Mathematics and Engineering), Milano, Bologna, and Torino, supervisor of 3 Leonardo graduate placements in 2002, tutor of 3 ASI-CONAE fellows in 2003-2005. Currently a supervisor of internships for Master thesis in Mathematics, Information and Telecommunication Engineering for the University of Trento. In 2003-2005, a tutor for a post-doc fellowship in Bioinformatics sponsored by PAT. A collection of teaching material and a list of recently supervised theses are available at the TEACHING group page. For a synopsis here: 1998-2003: Lecturer on "COMPUTATIONAL STATISTICS AND PREDICTIVE MODELS", a course of the Math Department of Trento University, and 2004-06: Lecturer on "Statistical Machine Learning", a course for the International Graduate School in Information and Communication Technologies, Trento University.

He is a founder of the WEBVALLEY project, the FBK summer course for dissemination of interdisciplinary scientific research. Since 2001, CF is responsible for the WebValley Scientific program, and a resident tutor for all the 7 editions of this event (history). Developing the culture of data with open source platforms (web scripting, geodatabases, webGIS, tools for data visualization, statistical analysis decision making) based on a challenging project is the theme of 3 fast-paced weeks, in which about 20 high schools students team up with senior and junior researchers. The goal of WebValley 2004 was the development of an integrated web platform for GIS-genetics research. The WEBVALLEY 2005 Camp , dealt with "High performance computing for the scientific visualization of geolocated biological-environmental data (Pieve di Bono, Trentino, June 27 - July 16, 2005). In 2006, an environmental informatics application was developed for solar energy map modeling, while the 2007 project drafted a prototype WebGIS system for mapping refugees and returnees in West Darfur for UN-HCR (with the humanitarian ngo INTERSOS and MPBA's spinoff MPA Solutions). Read more about WebValley.

Peer reviewed papers: total 100; intnl journals: 47; Book Chapters: 5; natl journals: 8; Int. congresses with review: 40. Invited lectures (Intl): 16. For scientific papers and other information please browse at: