Stefano Nolfi's CV

Short Bio

Stefano Nolfi is a research director of the Institute of Cognitive Sciences and Technologies of the Italian National Research Council and head of the Laboratory of Autonomous Robots and Artificial Life. He conducted pioneering research in Artificial Life and is one of the founders of Evolutionary Robotics. His main research interest is in study of how embodied and situated agents can develop behavioural and cognitive skills autonomously by adapting to their task/environment. Stefano authored and co-authored more than 200 peer-review scientific publications including a monograph book on Behavioral and Cognitive Robotics (2021), an edited book on Evolution of Communication and Language in Embodied Agents published by Springer Verlag (2010), and a monograph book on Evolutionary Robotics published by MIT (2000). He coordinated and participated to several international research projects including the Hierarchical Heterogeneous Swarm project (H2Swarm, Project Coordinator) founded by the European Science Foundation and to the following projects founded by the European Commission: (i) Transfer of Action and Language Knowledge in Robots (I-TALK, Principal Investigator), (ii) Towards Humanoid Robotic Swarms (SWARMANOID, Node Coordinator), (iii) Embodied and Communicating Agents (ECAgents, Principal Investigator), and (iv) Swarms of Self-Assembling Artifacts (SWARM-BOTS, Principal Investigator).

Contact

Institute of Cognitive Sciences and Technologies (ISTC)
National Research Council (CNR)
Via S. Martino della Battaglia 44, 00185, Roma, Italy
Phone: ++39-06-44595233
http://laral.istc.cnr.it/nolfi
stefano.nolfi (at) istc.cnr.it

Education and research experience

Head Laboratory of Autonomous Robotics and Artificial Life, Institute of Cognitive Science and Technologies, National Research Council (CNR), Rome, Italy, 2002-current
Director, Rome Node of the Centre for Robotics and Neural System (UOP-CRNS), University of Plymouth, U.K., 2009-current
Researcher Director, Institute of Cognitive Science and Technologies, National Research Council (CNR), Rome, Italy, 2006-current
Senior Researcher, Institute of Cognitive Science and Technologies, National Research Council (CNR), Rome, Italy, 2002-2005
Fellow, University of New South Wales, Canberra, Australia, November-December 2004.
Fellow, Institute of Advanced Study in Berlin (Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin), May-July 2003.

Head, Division of Neural Systems and Artificial Life, Institute of Psychology, National Research Council (CNR), Rome, Italy, 1994-2002

Visiting Researcher, SONY Computer Science Laboratory, Sony Inc., Tokyo, Japan, 1997

Visiting Researcher, Laboratory of Microcomputing, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL), Lausanne, Switzerland, 1996 & 1997

Researcher, Institute of Psychology, National Research Council (CNR), Rome, Italy, 1988-2001

Research Fellow, with Prof. Jeffrey Elman, Centre for Research in Language, University of California, San Diego, USA., 1987

Consultant, Voice Processing Laboratory, Olivetti S.p.A. Torino, Italy, Development of an automatic system for natural languange processing, 1987

Research Fellow, with Prof. Domenico Parisi, Department of Cognitive Science and Artificial Intelligence, National Research Council (CNR), Roma, Italy, 1985-1987.

Laurea (Master Degree) in Literature & Phylosophy (with distinction), Thesis on: A computational model of natural language processing, University of Rome "La Sapienza", Italy, 1986

Research projects

Principal Investigator, of the European Project Managing active and healthy aging with use of caring service robots (MARIO), ICT: Service robotics within assisted living environments. Contract n. 643808, 2015-2018.
Coordinator of the European Science Foundation Project Hierarchical Heterogeneous Swarm (H2Swarm) , ESF-2010-1010, 2011-2014.
Principal Investigator, CNR-ISTC Node, European Integrated Project I-Talk: Integration and Transfer of Action and Language Knowledge in Robots (IST-214668), 2008-current
Coordinator of the European Integrated Project ECAgents: Embodied and Communicating Agents (IST-2004-001940), 2004-2008
Principal Investogator of the European Project on SWARM-BOTS: Swarms of Self-Assembling Artifacts (IST-2000-31010), 2001-2005
Principal Investigator of the MIUR Project Action and perception in the construction of the cognitive world, Grant RBNE01SZB4 from the FIRB/MIUR, 2003-current.
Principal Investigator of the Italian Project on Multiagent system with fixed and mobile robot platforms (ROBOCARE), MIUR, Italy, 2002-current.
Principal Investigator of the Coordinated Project on Real Time Computing, National Research Council, Italy, 1999

Training and research supervision

Postdocs: Alessandra Vitanza, Luca Simione, Gianluca Massera, Gianluca Baldassarre, Marco Mirolli, Antonio Lafusa, Vito Trianni, Elio Tuci, Davide Marocco, Onofrio Gigliotta
PhDs: Nicola Milano (thesis), Jonata Tyska Carvalho (thesis), Paolo Pagliuca (thesis), Tomassino Ferrauto (thesis), Giuseppe Morlino, Gianluca Massera (thesis), MariaGiovanna Mazzapioda (thesis), Alberto Acerbi (thesis), Davide Marocco.
Internships: Filippo Cantucci, Piero Savastano, Diana Giorgini, Valerio Sperati, Joachim de Greef, Raffaele Bianco, Massimiliano Caretti, Anne Spallanzani
Master students: Angel Garcia-Casillas del Riego (thesis), Manlio Valenti (thesis), Gabriele Carboni (thesis), Tobias Leugger (thesis), Rick Janssen (thesis), Francesca Pettine (thesis), Fabio Ticconi (thesis), Jakub Czerwonko (thesis), Andrew Szabados (thesis), Francesco Pugliese, Mariagiovanna Mazzapioda, Gianluca Massera, Tomassino Ferrauto, Claudio Martella (thesis), Joachim de Greef, Guido de Croon, Solaiman Shokur (thesis), Raffaele Bianco, Cristina Massari, Louis Foucart, Plinio Conti, Anna Cristina Massari.

Invited talks

Robot Behavior as a Complex Adaptive System (invited talk) The International Conference Nonlinearity, Information and Robotics. Innopolis, Russia, 4 December, 2020.
Evolution of Collective Behavior in Robots (keynote talk) NGV Conference, Netherland Society for Behavioural Biology, Egmond aan Zee, Holland, 28-30 November, 2018.
Evolutionary Robotics: Behavior and Cognition as Complex Adaptive Systems (keynote talk). International Conference on Cognitive Sciences and Technology. 16-18 August 2018, Beijing, China.
Evolution of Communication and Language in Robots (keynote talk). International Conference on Cognitive Sciences and Technology. 16-18 August 2018, Beijing, China.
Evolution, Innovations, Evolvability (keynote talk). The 14th International Conference on the Simulation of Adaptive Behavior (SAB2016) 23-26 August 2016, Aberystwyth, UK video
On the Role of Environmental Variation and Phenotypic Organization in Artificial Evolution (invited talk). International Workshop on Evolving Plasticity in Natural and Artificial Systems, Center for Interdisciplinary Research, University of Bielefeld, Germany, 5-7 September 2016
On the role of the Multi-Level and Multi-Scale Organization of Behaviour: Evidences from Evolutionary Robotics Experiments (seminar). Universita della Svizzera Italiana, Lugano, Switzerland, 23 September 2014.
Exploring the Complex Adaptive System Nature of Behavior and Cognition Through Evolutionary Robotics Experiments (seminar), ISIR - Institut des Systèmes Intelligents et de Robotique, University Paris 6, 21 May 2014.
Behaviour and Cognition as a Complex Adaptive System (invited talk). Workshop Anthropos Techne. Agropoli (SA), Italy, 16-21 June 2014.
Complexity Engineering, (tutorial), Phd Course Great Ideas in ICT, 12 June 2014, University of Roma La Sapienza, Roma, Italy.
Evolutionary Robotics, (tutorial) IEEE Congress on Evolutionary Computation, Cancun, Mexico, 20 June 2013.
Adaptive Robotics: Behaviour and Cognition as Complex Adaptive Systems. (tutorial) The Fourth International Conference on Advanced Cognitive Technologies and Applications, Nizza, 22-27 July 2012.
Evolution/Development of Communication and Language in Embodied Agents. (invited talk). SmartData International Symposium: Privacy meets Evolutionary Robotics: Protecting our Freedoms with Virtual Tools. University of Toronto, Canada, 14-16 May 2012.
Co-development of Action and Language in Robots. (invited talk). Workshop on Bootstrapping, grounding and learning of communication systems in humans and robots. Bordeaux, France, 19 May 2011.
Adaptive Robotics: Behaviour and Cognition as Complex Adaptive Systems. (tutorial) Spring School on Interdisciplinary Methods for Cognitive Robotics, Collegium Budapest, Budapest, 2-4 May 2011.
Emergence of Communication in Evolving Robots. (tutorial). UQAM Summer School on The Origins of Language. Montreal, Canada 21-30 June 2010.
Adaptive Robotics. (tutorial) IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS 2010), Taipei (Taiwan), 18st October, 2010.
Co-development of behavioural and cognitive skills (invited talk). Integration and Transfer of Action and Language Workshop. September 22-24, 2008, Roma. Italy.
Behaviour and Cognition as a Complex Adaptive System: Insights from Evolutionary Robotics Experiments. (invited talk). VIII German Workshop on Artificial Life, Leipzig, Germany, July 30-August 1, 2008.
Behaviour and Cognition as a Complex Adaptive System: Insights from Evolutionary Robotics Experiments. (keynote talk) The European Conference on Evolutionary Computation (Evostar 2008), Napoli, Italy, March 26-28, 2008.
Behaviour as a complex Adaptive System. (invited talk) International Conference on Living Technology, Venezia, Italy, May 25-26, 2007
On the relation between cognition and behaviour: An embodied perspective. (invited talk) Second Meeting of the European Network for the Advancement of Artificial Cognitive Systems, Monaco, Germany, January 11-12, 2007
Behaviour as a complex Adaptive System: Evolution of coordinated and communicative behaviours. (tutorial) International Summer School on Collective Robotics, Lisboa, August 27-31, 2007
Behaviour as a Complex Adaptive System: Insights from Evolutionary Robotics Experiments. (tutorial) IEEE Symposium series on Computational Intelligence, April 1, 2007
Neural network models of Categorization. (invited talk) International Summer School on “Neural network models of perception, action and embodied knowledge” Department of Psychology, University of Bologna, Italy. July 13–19, 2005
Behaviour as a Complex Adaptive System. (invited talk) International School on Semiotic Dynamics, Language and Complexity, Erice (Sicily, Italy). December 12-15, 2005.
Evolving Swarm-Bots: Coordinated Behavior in Collection of Physically Assembled Robots. (invited talk). International Conference on Complex Systems (ICCS2004), Boston, USA, 16-21 May 2004
Evolutionary Robotics: Exploiting the Power of Self-Organization. (invited talk). The First Australian Conference on Artificial Life (ACAL 2003), Canberra, Australia, 6-7 December 2003.
Toward the Synthesis of Embodied and Situated Agents. (invited talk) International Colloquium on Cognition, Meaning and Complexity. Self-Organization in Cognitive Systems, Roma. June 14-15, 2002.
Sensory-Motor Coordination Sensory-Motor Intelligence and Beyond. (seminar) Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, Department of Information Technology, University of Zurich, Switzerland, January 19, 2001
Evolutionary Robotics. (tutorial) NTU, Singapore, 2 November, 2002.
Evolutionary Robotics. (tutorial) Orchard Hotel Singapore, Singapore, 31 October and 1 November, 2002.
Evolutionary Robotics. (tutorial) Century Novotel, Kuala Lampur, Malaysia, 29-30 October, 2002.
Evolutionary Robotics: Beyond Reactive Intelligence. (invited talk) International Conference on Evolution and Neural Control of Autonomous Systems, Jena, December 1-2, 2000.
Evolutionary Robotics. (tutorial) VI International Conference on Simulation of Adaptive Behavior and IV International Conference on Parallel Problem Solving from Nature, Paris, September 10, 2000.
Evolutionary Robotics. (seminar) Ecole Polytechnique Federal of Lausanne (EPFL), Lausanne, Switzerland, December 15, 2000
Power and Limits of Reactive Intelligence. (invited talk) International Colloquium on Language and Cognition: An Interdisciplinary Approach, Roma. May 18-20, 1999.
Evolutionary Robotics: Exploiting the power of self-organization. (invited talk) First International USA-Italy Conference on Applied Neural and Cognitive Sciences, Boston, MA: USA. October 3-6, 1999.
Developing robots through artificial evolution. (invited talk) First International Khepera Workshop. Heinz Nixdorf Institute, Paderborn, Germany. December 10-11, 1999.
Evolutionary Robotics. (tutorial) V European Conference on Artificial Life, Losanna, Switzerland, September 13, 1999.
Evolutionary Robotics. (seminar) Computer Science Department, Center for Complex Systems, Brandeis University. Boston, MA: USA. October 6, 1999
Evolutionary Robotics: Exploring the full power of self-organization. (invited talk) International Colloquium on Fluxes of Thought: Self-organizing Dynamics and Semantic Structures in Biological and Cognitive Systems, Rome, 25-27th June, 1998.
Evolutionary Robotics: Exploiting the full power of Self-Organization, (invited talk), Second Internation Workshop on Self-Learning Robots and Biorobotics, Institution of Electrical Engineers (IEE) Seminar Savoy Place, London: February, 12th, 1998.
Evolving non-trivial behavior on autonomous robots: Adaptation is more powerful than decomposition and integration, (invited talk), International Workshop on Artificial Life and Adaptive Robots, University of Aarhus, Denmark, 29-30th January, 1998.
Evolutionary Robotics: (tutorial) Exploring the full power of self-organization. VIII International Conference on Artificial Neural Networks, Skoevde, Sweden, September 1, 1998.
Adaptation is more powerful than decomposition and integration: Experimental evidences from evolutionary robotics. (seminar) Center for Neural and Adaptive Systems, School of Computing, University of Plymouth, Plymouth UK, February 13, 1998.
Evolving non-trivial behavior on autonomous robots: Adaptation is more powerful than decomposition and integration. (invited talk) The 5th International Conference on Evolutionary Robotics, Canadian Embassy in Tokyo, Japan, April 17-18, 1997.
Evolving non-trivial behavior on autonomous robots: Adaptation is more powerful than decomposition and integration. (seminar) School of Engeneering, Osaka University, Osaka, Japan, June 2, 1997.
Adaptive Behavior and Evolutionary Robotics research at the Institue of Psychology of the National Research Council. (seminar) Computer Science Laboratory, SONY, Tokyo, Japan, May 22, 1997.
Evolving non-trivial behavior on autonomous robots: Adaptation is more powerful than decomposition and integration. (seminar) Yagami Campus, Keyo University, Tokyo, Japan, May 30, 1997.
Evolving non-trivial behavior on autonomous robots: Adaptation is more powerful than decomposition and integration. (seminar) School of Engeneering, Chiba University, Chiba, Japan, April 21, 1997.
Using emergent modularity to develop control system for mobile robots. (seminar) LAMI, Ecole Polytechnique Federal of Lausanne (EPFL), Lausanne, Switzerland, December 4, 1996.
Evolving non-trivial behaviors on real robots: a garbage collecting robot (invited talk) IEE Workshop on Self Learning Robots, London 12th February, 1995.
Phenotypic Plasticity in Evolving Neural Networks (invited talk) International Conference From Perception to Action, Losanna, September 5-9, 1994.
Learning, Behavior and Evolution (invited talk) First European Conference on Artificial Life, Parigi, 1991.

Lecturing

Associate Professor, Undergraduate course on Behavioral and Cognitive Robotics, Innopolis University, Russia, 2019/2020 & 2020/2021
Associate Professor, Undergraduate course on Evolutionary Robotics, University della Calabria, Rende (CS), Italy, 2000/2001, 2003-2004
Associate Professor, Undergraduate course on Psychology, University "LUMSA", Roma, 2000/2001, 2001/2002, 2002/2003
Associate Professor, Undergraduate course on Artificial Neural Networks, University "LUMSA", Rome, Italy, 1998/1999 , 1999/2000
Associate Professor, Undergraduate course on Educational Technologies, University of L'Aquila, Italy, 1998/1999, 1999/2000
Associate Professor, Undergraduate course on Computer Science, University of L'Aquila, Italy, 1998/1999