Leonardo Lamanna wins an AIxIA 2023 award

Born in 1996, Lamanna won the award given annually for the best doctoral dissertation in the field of artificial intelligence nationwide with a study titled “Integrating Planning and Learning for Agents Acting in Unknown Environments”.

“I have been concerned,” Leonardo Lamanna explained, “with artificial agents performing tasks in unfamiliar environments, such as in the case of a robot cleaning a kitchen for the first time. In this scenario, an artificial agent must be able to explore the environment and create a model for itself that is useful for reasoning about how to plan the actions to be performed in order to accomplish the task. In addition, I considered the situation where the environment is dynamic and unpredictable and an agent must be able to adapt his or her model to changes”. 

A graduate of the University of Brescia with a degree in computer engineering, Lamanna received his Ph.D. in information engineering from the same university in collaboration with Fondazione Bruno Kessler. He is currently continuing the research activities undertaken during his doctoral studies at FBK and in particular in the DKM (Data and Knowledge Management) Unit led by Luciano Serafini, and also through FBK within FAIR, the national partnership on artificial intelligence that brings together the most important Italian universities and research centers on the topic, funded by PNRR funds. “I feel very honored,” Leonardo Lamanna remarked, “to have received this award, and I would like to especially thank Luciano Serafini for guiding and helping me during my doctorate.”

The award ceremony took place on Wednesday, November 8, during the AIxIA 2023 international conference held in Rome November 6 through 9.