Department of Computer, Control and Management Engineering

Tiziana Catarci graduated in Electronic Engineering from Sapienza University of Rome in February 1987 and received her PhD in Computer Science from the same university in October 1992. Since November 2000, she has been Full Professor of Information Processing Systems (ING-INF/05). She is affiliated with the Department of Computer, Control and Management Engineering Antonio Ruberti (DIAG, formerly the Department of Computer and Systems Science) within the Faculty of Information Engineering, Computer Science and Statistics at Sapienza University of Rome.

In November 2020, she became a founding member of SIpEIA, the Italian Society for the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence, of which she has been President since 2024.

Since 19 February 2020, she has been a member of the Italian High Council of Public Works.

Since April 2025, she has been a member of the Scientific Committee of the CNEL Opera Observatory.

Since May 2025, she has served as Director of the Institute of Cognitive Sciences and Technologies (ISTC) of the Italian National Research Council (CNR).

Since July 2025, she has been a member of the Italian National Bioethics Committee of the Presidency of the Council of Ministers.

From November 2018 to October 2024, she served as Director of DIAG.

From 2019 to 2025, she was a member of the Evaluation Unit and Independent Evaluation Body of the University of Teramo.

From November 2022 to October 2024, she served on the Academic Senate as the representative of full professors for Macro-Area D.

From June 2017 to November 2023, she was Editor-in-Chief of the ACM Journal of Data and Information Quality (JDIQ).

From 2014 to 2020, she served as Director of the Interuniversity Centre for Cognitive Processing in Natural and Artificial Systems (ECONA).

From 2015 to 2018, she was Director of the interdepartmental research centre “Sapienza Design Research.”

From July 2015 to June 2017, she was President of Kion S.p.A., a company belonging to the CINECA Group, where she also served as a member of the Board of Directors from 2011 to 2017.

From 2009 to October 2014, she was President of the InfoSapienza Centre.

From November 2010 to April 2014, she served as Vice-Rector for Infrastructures and Technologies at Sapienza University, and from May 2010 to April 2014 she was Coordinator of the university’s Steering and Coordination Body.

Tiziana Catarci began her research activity in September 1986 at the Department of Computer and Systems Science. Over the years, her main research areas have included:

• Human–Computer Interaction

• Languages and interfaces for database interaction

• Data quality in information systems

• Database modelling and design

• Layout algorithms

• Ethics of Artificial Intelligence

In these areas, Tiziana Catarci has published more than 200 papers in prestigious international journals and conference proceedings and has authored or edited more than 20 books. A selection of her publications is available at: http://dblp.uni-trier.de/pers/hd/c/Catarci:Tiziana.

She has also coordinated or participated in numerous national and international research projects, including the European projects KIM, VENUS, FADIVA, LAURIN, SEWASIE, DELOS, Interop, WORKPAD, SM4All, PROMISE and SmartVortex.

TEACHING ACTIVITIES

Her institutional teaching activities were initially conducted within the Faculty of Engineering at Sapienza University and, following its establishment, within the Faculty of Information Engineering, Computer Science and Statistics of the same university. Her teaching has focused primarily on databases and human–computer interaction.

In particular, Tiziana Catarci introduced human–computer interaction into the Computer Engineering degree programme at Sapienza. At the time, this subject was largely absent from university-level computer science education in Italy, unlike in the United States, where it had already been taught since the 1980s at institutions such as MIT, Georgia Tech and Virginia Tech.

She has carried out teaching activities at the Faculty of Information Engineering, Computer Science and Statistics.

MANAGEMENT AND ADMINISTRATIVE ACTIVITIES

In her roles as Vice-Rector for Infrastructures and Technologies and President of InfoSapienza, Tiziana Catarci promoted a comprehensive renewal and rationalisation of the university’s technological infrastructure, including the expansion and systematic reorganisation of its networks and Wi-Fi services, as well as the modernisation of its IT services.

Under her leadership, Sapienza was equipped with integrated information systems supporting all administrative, research and teaching activities. These systems also provided an essential foundation for the re-engineering and simplification of administrative processes. Within this framework, the computerisation and dematerialisation of student records and academic planning processes were fully completed.

She also supported the innovation of communication and information services, particularly those addressed to students, by exploiting the potential of digital communication. Under her coordination, Sapienza developed a new web portal designed on the basis of the requirements and actual needs of all categories of users. Sapienza’s social media channels, including Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, were integrated into the portal.

A new, more efficient and modern email and collaborative working environment, based on Google Apps, was also adopted and made available to students and all Sapienza staff.

Another important initiative for communication and the dissemination of culture was the development of the Sapienza Digital Library, which contains a substantial part of the university’s book and multimedia heritage in digital format. This was made possible in part by the extensive digitisation work carried out free of charge by Google following Sapienza’s participation in the Google Books project.

Finally, she promoted a project for the creation of a Sapienza “cloud”: a virtual and distributed set of computing resources for storing, archiving and processing large quantities of data. These data were to be made available in open formats to the greatest possible extent, while personalised services would be provided to all users through an advanced version of the university portal.

Tiziana Catarci was a candidate for Rector of Sapienza University for the 2014–2020 term, in connection with the SapienzaFutura movement.

OTHER ACTIVITIES

Since 2006, she has been a member of the Advisory Board of HCIV, a research programme on Human–Computer Interaction and Visualisation funded by Germany through DFKI in Kaiserslautern.

Since 2016, she has been a member of the Big Data Committee of the Italian National Institute of Statistics (ISTAT).

Since 2018, she has been a member of the Steering Committee for Confcommercio’s Digital Innovation Project (EDI).

Since 2018, she has been a member of the Scientific Committee of the “Laboratory on Healthcare Information Systems” at the Graduate School of Health Economics and Management of the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore.

Since 2018, she has served on the evaluation board of the “Most Powerful Women” award promoted by FORTUNE magazine.

Since 2020, she has been a member of the Scientific Committee of the “Telemedicine Observatory” at the Graduate School of Health Economics and Management of the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore.

Since December 2022, she has been a member of the Ethics Committee of the PRODIGIT project, promoted by the Italian Ministry of Economy and Finance to support the digitalisation of the tax justice system and the development of innovative services.

With regard to the evaluation of industrial research and pre-competitive development activities, since 2005 she has collaborated with the Italian Ministry of Economic Development, both as an expert evaluator of individual projects and as a member of evaluation panels for projects funded under the Technological Innovation Fund, Law No. 46/1982, and the Integrated Facilitation Packages programme.

She has also carried out evaluation activities for the Italian Ministry of Education, Universities and Research (MIUR), as well as for regional projects promoted by the Regions of Calabria, Liguria, Marche and Emilia-Romagna.

In the field of research evaluation, she has reviewed PRIN and FIRB projects for MIUR, as well as projects funded under the European Union’s Sixth Framework Programme.

GIRLS IN STEM

For many years, Tiziana Catarci has been actively engaged both in addressing gender-related issues in the STEM disciplines and in promoting STEM culture among girls and young women. For this work, she received an award from the Levi Montalcini Association in 2017.

As part of these activities, she has published scientific papers and, above all, organised meetings with female secondary-school students, collaborated on projects promoted by public and private organisations, and acted as a role model and mentor at meetings and presentations.

Among her most recent initiatives are the following projects:

“In Estate si imparano le STEM” (“Learning STEM in the Summer”), promoted by the Department for Equal Opportunities of the Presidency of the Council of Ministers. The project supported the organisation of summer camps in science, mathematics, computer science and coding for primary and lower- and upper-secondary schools. It formed part of a series of initiatives designed to promote equal opportunities and combat gender stereotypes in education, developed in collaboration with the Ministry of Education, Universities and Research.

“Inspiring Girls,” a project promoted by Valore D, Eni, Intesa Sanpaolo and Corriere della Sera. The project aims to help female lower- and upper-secondary school students overcome gender stereotypes and encourage them to pursue education and careers in scientific, technological and information technology fields: http://www.inspiring-girls.com/.

“Women in Motion,” a project launched by FS Italiane with the aim of promoting women’s careers in technical fields and professional roles that are still predominantly held by men: http://wim.win/.

“Girls in Motion,” an initiative connected with “Women in Motion” and promoted by a network of major Italian companies led by women. The initiative is aimed at female upper-secondary school students. A group of 20 girls, selected from more than 1,500 applicants, visited centres of technical excellence operated by the companies in the network and met female role models. The participants were thus able to describe and communicate a female-oriented technical culture through texts, images and videos shared on the WIM – Women in Motion Facebook page, thereby encouraging other girls to choose university programmes or professional careers in scientific and technical fields.

“Storie di Leadership” (“Leadership Stories”), promoted by Edison and Valore D, in which different female and male approaches to leadership are compared.

Since June 2020, she has been a member of the Management Committee of COST Action CA19122, “European Network for Gender Balance in Informatics.”

Since March 2021, she has represented Sapienza University on the Advisory Board of STEAmiamoci: https://steamiamoci.it/chi-siamo/.

Since September 2022, she has been a member of the Working Group on “Overcoming the Gender Gap in Digital Skills,” established by Repubblica Digitale within the Department for Digital Transformation of the Presidency of the Council of Ministers.