Andrea Vandin

I investigate several research lines of Computer Science, pursuing an interdisciplinary approach, at the boundaries of the social sciences and biology. My research often regards the creation and development of languages, techniques, algorithms and tools grounded on rigorous math or statistics for the modelling and analysis of complex dynamical systems in various domains. Dynamical systems across many branches of science and engineering can be described in terms of massively many entities, or agents, possibly interacting over large-scale networks. I am interested in the development of scalable quantitative methods for the quantitative analysis of such systems, including simulation and model reduction.

I am interested in applying my research in practice, and hence I provided tool support for most of my contributions. An example is http://www.erode.eu, a fully-featured tool for the evaluation and reduction of dynamical systems. Furthermore, I also investigate statistical analysis techniques, and I developed the Statistical Model Checker http://bit.ly/MultiVeStATool. It allows one to easily enrich existing discrete-event simulators and agent-based models with automated distributed simulation-based analysis capabilities ensuring the statistical reliability of the obtained results.

Teaching mission

Being the first computer scientist ever hired at Sant'Anna School, my teaching mission is to properly introduce our (non-computer science) students to the fundamental principles of structured programming, with focus on data analysis.

In fact, programming and data processing is now very present in the everyday life of students and researchers from several disciplines.

For example, I designed and teach the successful courses 'Introduction to Programming and Data Processing' (1 and 2) which attract students from all areas of the school, but also some PhD students and researchers regularly join. The course makes extensive use of e-learning platforms and is one of the most popular courses in the school.

Teaching & Supervision

• 2021
  • ​Responsible for the PhD course Introduction to Programming and Data Processing in Python, Gran Sasso Science Institute, L’Aquila, Italy, 2021
• 2020-NOW
  • Member of the selection committee for the ‘Allievi Ordinari’ (elite undergraduate students) of Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies Pisa, Italy
  • Responsible for the MSc/BSc course Introduction to Programming and Data Processing Module 1, Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy
    • Formerly 'Introduction to Programming in Python'
  • Responsible for the MSc/BSc course Introduction to Programming and Data Processing Module 2, Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy
  • Co-supervisor of a PhD student funded by my grant REDUCTO on the reduction of biological systems, DTU Technical University of Denmark
  • Responsible of the MSc course 02247 Compiler Construction, DTU Technical University of Denmark
  • Co-supervisor of the MSc project "Deriving discrete transition-based models from observed transformations in continuous systems", 01/01/2020-30/06/2020, DTU Technical University of Denmark 
• 2017-2019 - at DTU Technical University of Denmark
  • Responsible of the MSc course 02393 Programming in C++
  • Responsible of the MSc course 02247 Compiler Construction
  • Co-responsible of the MSc course 02246 Model Checking
  • Supervisor of the BSc project: "AlarmInsight", 02/09/2019-27/01/2020
  • Supervisor of the BSc project: "Statistical Model Checking for C++ Simulators: generalizing the MultiVeStA framework to C++ using JNI", 11/02/2019-17/06/2019
  • Supervisor of the BSc project: "MultiVeStA meets C++ simulators", 06/02/2019-12/06/2019
  • Co-supervisor of the MSc project: "Modeling and analysis in BADGraph: Analysis of system threats and Tool validation", 15/02/2019-12/07/2019
  • Supervisor of the BSc project: "BomberSumo: An online multiplayer game", 18/02/2019-13/05/2019
  • Co-supervisor of the BSc project: "A graphical extension/plugin to BADGraph: Visualizing and drawing security scenarios integrated with The Eclipse Foundation project Sirius", 06/02/2019-12/06/2019
  • Responsible/Supervisor of the special course: "Threat modelling and analysis in BADGraph", 02/01/2019-23/01/2019
  • Supervisor of the BSc project: "E-Comics: Electronic Comic Book Store and Streaming Service For Eudor Publishing Company", 03/10/2018-16/01/2019
  • Co-supervisor of the MSc project: "Vulnerability analysis using intruder and attack tree models", 02/01/2018-01/06/2018
  • Co-supervisor of the MSc project: "Model Reduction in Process Mining for Control Flow Discovery Purposes", 22/01/2018-22/07/2018
  • Co-supervisor of the BSc project: "CGull, automatic campaign records from Facebook, Adform and Google", 05/02/2018-04/06/2018
• 2017 and before
  • Co-responsible of the PhD course "Advanced Topics of Computer Science", IMT School for Advanced Studies Lucca, Italy, 2017
  • Lecturer at the 16th International School on Formal Methods for the Design of Computer, Communication and Software Systems (SFM'16) [lecture notes], 2016
  • Co-responsible of the PhD course "Qualitative and Quantitative Formal Methods for Computer Science", IMT School for Advanced Studies Lucca, 2015
  • Lecturer of the MSc course "Formal Modeling of Software Intensive Systems", University of Camerino, Italy, 2015
  • Lecturer and mentor at the 1st Awareness Summer School (AWASS2012), 2012
  • Teaching assistant at University of Leicester, MSc course "Distributed Systems and Applications", 2012
  • Co-supervision of a number of PhD Students at IMT School for Advanced Studies Lucca, Italy.
  • Co-supervision of a number of MSc and BSc Students at University of Pisa, Italy.

Talks

• Speaker at more than 50 international conferences and workshops with peer-reviewed proceedings

Invited Talks

• Automated Statistical Analysis of Economic Agent-Based Models by Statistical Model Checking, Economics Seminars Series, IMT School of Advanced Studies, Lucca, March 2021;
• Automated and Distributed Statistical Analysis of Economic Agent-Based Models, Economics Seminars, Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, November 2020;
• Invitation to participate in the Dagstuhl Seminar on Computer Science Methods for Effective and Sustainable Simulation Studies, November 2020 [Canceled due to COVID’19]
• Speeding up the simulation of large-scale dynamical systems by aggregation, DEIS Unit of Aalborg University, DK, November 2019;
• Reduction of Ordinary Differential Equations with ERODE, IDA Danish Union of Engineers, May 2019;
• Course design: The case of a classic computer science course, 6th Biennial for Teaching and Learning, DTU, Denmark, April 2019 (Biennial19);
• Speeding up simulation of large-scale dynamical networks by aggregation, Sant'Anna School for Advanced Studies, Italy, March 2019
• Speeding up Stochastic and Deterministic Simulation by Aggregation: an Advanced Tutorial, 51st Winter Simulation Conference (WSC 2018), December 2018;
• Language-based abstractions for Ordinary Differential Equations, Tomography's Seminar Cycle, DTU Compute, Denmark, April 2018
• Language-based abstractions for massively concurrent systems, DTU Compute Denmark, June 2017
• Efficient Computation of Differential Equivalences, 15th International Workshop on Quantitative Aspects of Programming Languages (QAPL'17), Uppsala University, Sweden, April 2017
• Language-based abstractions for dynamical systems, DTU Compute Denmark, February 2017
• ERODE: Evaluation and Reduction of Ordinary Differential Equations, Microsoft Research Cambridge, UK, August 2016
• Quantitative Abstractions for Collective Adaptive Systems, 16th International School on Formal Methods for the Design of Computer, Communication and Software Systems (SFM2016), Bertinoro, Italy, June 2016
• Forward and Backward Bisimulations for Chemical Reaction Networks, University of Camerino, Italy, December 2015
• Ordinary Lumpability for Stochastic Process Algebras with Discrete and Continuous Semantics, University of Edinburgh, UK, May 2014
• Specification and Analysis of Systems with Dynamic Structure, ETH Zurich, CH, September 2012
• Self-assembly Strategies, Mentoring at Awareness Summer School AWASS2012, Edinburgh Napier University, UK, June 2012
• Towards the Analysis of Systems with Dynamic Structure, PhD Seminars Series (PhDSeminars), University of Leicester, UK, December 2011