Malerba

Since the past 4 months I have the privilege to collaborate at the Politecnico di Milano with Prof. Pier Giorgio Malerba, serving as teaching assistant for the course of Bridge Theory and Design. The course, taken by second year Master of Science students in Civil and Transportation Engineer, is one of the few that require as partial fulfillment a compulsory final project.
The project focuses on the structural design of a prestressed concrete box girder bridge and I assisted 5 teams of 7-8 students over the entire Fall Semester. My teams did an excellent job: we finished the last revision yesterday and I am looking forward to them delivering the projects and taking the final exam in January and February.
For me it was an exciting experience which fits perfectly with my current job as a Programme Officer in the European Commission and specifically in the Sustainable Transport Unit of the Joint Research Centre.  

Workshop on Identification of Future Emerging Technologies in the Wind power sector, 5th December 2017

I was happy to meet with old friends at the workshop on identification of future emerging technologies in the wind power sector, held yesterday at the JRC in Ispra.
In particular, Francesco Petrini from the University of Rome with whom I worked together for more than 10 years (including a close collaboration in the period 2013-2016 for an ESA funded Energy Harvesting project), Gianni Bartoli (from the University of Florence) with whom together with Francesco we ran several sessions of wind tunnel tests, Nafsika Stavridou (who I know from my past in Civil Engineering), Michael Muskulus (from NTNU) who I know from my past research in offshore wind energy, and Prof. Lampis Baniotopoulos (University of Birmingham), a great person.
Very happy to meet in person also Prof. Flemming Rasmussen (from DTU) a guru in wind turbine design, and so many other experts on the wind energy sector.

The complete list of the workshop participants:

Participant	Affiliation
Charalampos Baniotopoulos	University of Birmingham
Stephan Barth	Centre for wind energy research ForWind
Gianni Bartoli	University of Florence
Elisa Boelman	JRC, European Commission
Dennis Bosse	RWTH – Aachen
Alessandro Croce	Politecnico di Milano
Marco Fontana	Università degli Studi di Trento
Adrian Gambier	Fraunhofer IWES
Konstantinos Gkoumas	JRC, Ispra, European Commission
Christopher Golightly	Independent researcher
Peter Jamieson	University of Strathclyde
Andrew Macdonald	Offshore Renewable Energy ORE Catapult
Alberto Moro	JRC, Ispra, European Commission
Jimmy Murphy	University College Cork
Michael Muskulus	Norwegian University of Science and Technology NTNU
Francesco Petrini	Sapienza Universita' di Roma
Luca Pigolotti	University of Florence
Flemming Rasmussen	Technical University of Denmark
Vera Reis	JRC, Ispra, European Commission
Philippe Schild	DG RTD, Bruxelles, European Commission
Nafsika Stavridou	University of Birmingham
Nigel Taylor	JRC, Ispra, European Commission
Simon Watson	Delft University of Technology

 

post DCEE 2016 - pre DCEE 2017

Last October in Rome, together with Franco Bontempi, I organised the 5th Design in Civil and Environmental Engineering workshop (DCEE 2016). But time flies.
In view of the DCEE 2017 workshop that this year will take place in Cagliari Sardinia on November 9-11, we uploaded the DCEE 2016 papers in the workshop website, together with a brief editorial.
We are looking forward to a successful DCEE 2017 workshop!

team building | Alpe Devero

team building

noun

noun: team building; noun: teambuilding

1. the action or process of causing a group of people to work together effectively as a team, especially by means of activities and events designed to increase motivation and promote cooperation.

   
   

   

   
   

   

   
   

   

   
   

   

   
   

   

   
   

   

   
   

   

   
   

   

   
   

   

   
   

   

   
   

24-h

Earlier tonight I returned from a 24-hour trip to Ispra (a small town near Varese in Northern Italy). The location is wonderful, lying on the east shore of lake Maggiore, and fully immersed in green.
Although it was a business trip, I had the opportunity to stroll around the lake and the town-center.
My visit to the Joint Research Center (JRC) of the European Union stressed my positive opinion even more.

The lake Maggiore dock in Ispra

The lake Maggiore dock in Ispra

Lake view

Lake view

Night view of the lakeside

The best (and only) aperitivo in the premises  

The hotel where I spent the night - “The Lobster” movie renders the idea

Hotel Europa

Tourist port

(on) DCEE 2016

On October 6-8, I co-chaired the 5th International Workshop in Design in Civil and Environmental Engineering (DCEE 2016), which was held in the Faculty of Engineering of the Sapienza University of Rome.

My involvement with the DCEE workshops dates back to 2014 and the third edition held in Copenhagen (where I sent two papers based on the Master Theses of two students) and 2015 in Taipei (where I participated myself presenting two papers).

The workshop scientific program included 18 presentations (divided in 6 sessions) and 2 plenary lectures on design methodology and education, and on the role of the interdisciplinarity in the design process.

Participation on the 1st day

Participation on the 2nd day

2nd day plenary

Participation on the 2nd day

The workshop also included two guided tours. The first tour at the Palazzo della Civiltà Italiana known also as the Colosseo Quadrato (Square Colosseum), an icon of Modern Architecture, nowadays housing the luxury fashion label Fendi. 

At the rooftop of the Square Colosseum  

The second tour focused on ancient Rome, and on recent and extraordinary findings in the north-eastern area of the Palatine Hill archaeological site.

The Colosseum (left) and the Arch of Constantine (right)

Inside the excavation site

On the last day

In total, over 30 people took part during the 3 days of the workshop, and exchanged ideas on their topics of research.

Group photo