Alessandro Sebastian Podda

Research Unit Coordinator

Research Interests: artificial intelligence, deep learning, information security, blockchain, smart cities

About Me

Alessandro Sebastian Podda is an Assistant Professor (RTDa) at the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science of the University of Cagliari, and he is accredited by the Italian Ministry of University and Research for Associate Professor positions in the scientific sectors 01/B1 (Informatics) and 09/H1 (Computer Engineering). He received a master's degree in Computer Science from the University of Cagliari (cum laude) in 2014 and he got a PhD in Mathematics and Computer Science with a thesis entitled "Behavioural contracts: from centralized to decentralized implementations" in 2018. In 2017, he has been visiting scientist at the Laboratory of Cryptography and Industrial Mathematics of the University of Trento. In 2021, he was formally commissioned to a six month collaboration with the Ispra Joint Research Center (JRC) of the European Commission under the research tender ref. JRC/IPR/2020/VLVP/2916.

Currently, Alessandro Sebastian Podda is Research Unit Coordinator (AI for eHealth and Smart Cities) at the Artificial Intelligence and Big Data Laboratory and member of the Blockchain Laboratory. He has been also the Work Package Lead of the Doutdes and Sardcoin projects and participates/d in several research projects including AlmostAnOracle, Nomad, Safespotter, Social Glue and Mister. To date, he has been the co-author of no. 17 articles in international journals in the field of computer science, no. 15 conference and workshop proceedings, and 1 book chapter, for which he has over 810 citations on Google Scholar and over 550 on Scopus, as well as a speaker (eg. LOD 2022, ICCSA 2021, PerAwareCity 2021, MaDaIN 2020, FACS 2015, etc.), co-chair (AISC 2021/2022, HUMAD 2024) and program committee member at numerous international scientific events (eg. HT2022, LOD 2021/2022/2023/2024, IEEE HPCC 2022, IEEE CPS-COM 2021, etc.).

Alessandro Sebastian Podda is Member of the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM) and of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).

Selected publications

Document title	Author	Year	Source
Statistical arbitrage powered by Explainable Artificial Intelligence (link)	S. Carta, S. Consoli, A. S. Podda, D. Reforgiato Recupero, and M. M. Stanciu	2022	Expert Systems With Applications, vol. 193 (impact factor* 8.66)
Fully-automated deep learning pipeline for segmentation and classification of breast ultrasound images (link)	A.S. Podda, R. Balia, S. Barra, S. Carta, G. Fenu, L. Piano	2022	Journal of Computational Science, vol. 63 (impact factor* 3.81)
VSTAR: Visual Semantic Thumbnails and tAgs Revitalization (link)	S. Carta, A. Giuliani, L. Piano, A.S. Podda, and D. Reforgiato Recupero	2022	Expert Systems With Applications, vol. 193 (impact factor* 8.66)
Multi-DQN: an Ensemble of Deep Q-Learning Agents for Stock Market Forecasting (link)	S. Carta, A. Ferreira, A. S. Podda, D. Reforgiato Recupero, and A. Sanna	2021	Expert Systems With Applications, vol. 164 (impact factor* 8.66)
Ensembling and Dynamic Asset Selection for Risk-Controlled Statistical Arbitrage (link)	S. Carta, S. Consoli, A. S. Podda, D. Reforgiato Recupero, and M. M. Stanciu	2021	IEEE Access, vol. 9 (impact factor* 3.47)
Explainable Machine Learning Exploiting News and Domain-Specific Lexicon for Stock Market Forecasting (link)	S. Carta, S. Consoli, L. Piras, A. S. Podda, and D. Reforgiato Recupero	2021	IEEE Access, vol. 9 (impact factor* 3.47)
A Multi-Layer and Multi-Ensemble Stock Trader Using Deep Learning and Deep Reinforcement Learning (link)	S. Carta, A. Corriga, A. Ferreira, A. S. Podda, and D. Reforgiato Recupero	2021	Applied Intelligence, vol. 51, n. 2 (impact factor* 5.08)
Deep Learning and Time Series-to-Image Encoding for Financial Forecasting (link)	S. Barra, S. Carta, A. Corriga, A. S. Podda, and D. Reforgiato Recupero	2020	Journal of Automatica Sinica, vol. 7, n. 3 (impact factor* 6.17)

* Data from Clarivate (ISI/Web of Science): Journal Citation Reports 2021 (JCR)

[1] S. Carta, A. Ferreira, A. S. Podda, D. Reforgiato Recupero, and A. Sanna, Multi-DQN: an Ensemble of Deep Q-Learning Agents for Stock Market Forecasting (2021). Expert Systems With Applications, vol. 164 (impact factor 8.66) - link

[2] S. Carta, S. Consoli, A. S. Podda, D. Reforgiato Recupero, and M. M. Stanciu, Ensembling and Dynamic Asset Selection for Risk-Controlled Statistical Arbitrage (2021). IEEE Access, vol. 9 (impact factor 3.47) - link

[3] S. Carta, S. Consoli, L. Piras, A. S. Podda, and D. Reforgiato Recupero, Explainable Machine Learning Exploiting News and Domain-Specific Lexicon for Stock Market Forecasting (2021). IEEE Access, vol. 9 (impact factor 3.47) - link

[4] S. Carta, A. Corriga, A. Ferreira, A. S. Podda, and D. Reforgiato Recupero, A Multi-Layer and Multi-Ensemble Stock Trader Using Deep Learning and Deep Reinforcement Learning (2021). Applied Intelligence, vol. 51, n. 2 (impact factor 5.02) - link

[5] S. Barra, S. Carta, A. Corriga, A. S. Podda, and D. Reforgiato Recupero, Deep Learning and Time Series-to-Image Encoding for Financial Forecasting (2020). Journal of Automatica Sinica, vol. 7, n. 3 (impact factor 6.17) - link

The full list of publication is available in Google Scholar.

Research projects

- TRICS: A Trusted Reservation Infrastructure for Computational Societies (research collaborator);

- SOCIAL GLUE: A Modular Development Platform for Community-oriented Services (research collaborator);

- NOMAD: Next-generation Open Mobile Apps Development (research collaborator);

- DOUTDES: Trasferimento di tecnologie e competenze di Business Intelligence alle aziende dei settori innovativi e tradizionali (project manager, wp leader, solution architect);

- SARDCOIN: Tecnologie blockchain per realizzare un sistema di smart coupon a supporto del turismo in Sardegna (project manager, solution architect);

- ALMOSTANORACLE: AI and Big Data. Algorithms for Financial Time Series Forecasting (research collaborator);

- SAFESPOTTER: Intelligenza Artificiale e Sicurezza Stradale (research collaborator, solution architect).

Teaching activity

2023.
- Lecturer in Operating Systems and Network Programming (BSC program in Applied Computer Science and Data Analytics)

2022.
- Lecturer in Operating Systems and Network Programming (BSC program in Applied Computer Science and Data Analytics)
- Lecturer in Web Design (MSc program in Philosophy and Communication Theories)

2021.
- Lecturer in Web Design (MSc program in Philosophy and Communication Theories)
- Co-lecturer in C Programming (BSc program in Computer Science)
- Co-lecturer for the Samsung Innovation Camp "Smart Things"

2019.
- Local co-lecturer for the Cyberchallenge 2019
- Co-lecturer for the 2nd Scientific School on Blockchain & distributed ledger technologies - International PhD Spring School - 10-14 June '19, Pula (Cagliari, Italy)

2018.
- Co-lecturer for the 1st Scientific School on Blockchain & distributed ledger technologies - International PhD Spring School - 12-15 June '18, Pula (Cagliari, Italy)
- Teaching assistant of Foundations of Computer Science (BSc program in Computer Science)

2017.
- Teaching assistant of Foundations of Computer Science (BSc program in Computer Science)
- Teaching assistant of Security Foundations (MSc program in Computer Science)

2016.
- Teaching assistant of Foundations of Computer Science (BSc program in Computer Science)
- Teaching assistant of Security Foundations (MSc program in Computer Science)

2015.
- Teaching assistant of Foundations of Computer Science (BSc program in Computer Science)
- Teaching assistant of Security Foundations (MSc program in Computer Science)

2014.
- Teaching assistant of Algorithms and data structures (BSc program in Computer Science)
- Teaching assistant of Security Foundations (MSc program in Computer Science)