I am Professor of Discrete Optimization, currently serving as Head of the Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE) of the Université Catholique de Louvain.
I graduated summa cum laude in Automation & Computer Science Engineering at the Universitá degli Studi di Palermo, Italy (2003), and I was awarded the Ph.D. in Computer Science by the Université Libre de Bruxelles (2008), for my studies in discrete optimization, network design and computational phylogenetics. Prior to joining the Université Catholique de Louvain in 2014, I was appointed Chargé de Recherches at the Belgian National Fund for Scientific Research (2009-2013) and Assistant Professor of Discrete Optimization at the Faculty of Economics and Business of the Rijksuniversiteit Groningen (2013-2014).
I serve as an Associate Editor for Soft Computing since 2021. I am panel member for the Canadian NSERC/CRSNG (calls 2022-2025), and appointed Expert for the European Research Executive Agency for the REA Marie Skłodowska-Curie European Postdoctoral Fellowships calls 2022 and 2023.