Curriculum vitae
Giovanni’s research sits where unmanned aircraft meet wireless networks: how drones communicate over 5G and non-terrestrial links, how to simulate those networks at system level, and how to detect, track and identify drones that should not be there.
Before joining the JRC as Project Officer in April 2026, he built SeDaFuV — an open-source C++ system that fuses radar, RF, optical and acoustic sensors to identify and track UAVs — as an external service provider to the JRC, and spent eight years at the Polytechnic University of Bari tinkering with open-source simulators, 5G and MANET testbeds with software-defined radios, and NVIDIA Jetson boards and ROS 2 for real-world deployments.
He has taught Ethical Hacking at the Polytechnic University of Bari and contributed to ns-3 through Google Summer of Code 2023.
Experience
- 2026–PresentProject Officer (Scientist)Runs EMERALD, a project that detects the electromagnetic emissions of drones for counter-terrorism applications.European Commission, Joint Research Centre — Centre for Advanced Studies
Ispra, Italy - 2025Research Engineer — ISP5G+ projectDesigned 5G and beyond-5G testbeds on OpenAirInterface and srsRAN with USRP B210, USRP X410 and bladeRF xA9 radios.Polytechnic University of Bari
- Containerised core and RAN environments with Docker for modular experiments.
- Fuzzed UE–AMF attach and authentication procedures to find control-plane denial-of-service weaknesses.
Bari, Italy - 2024–2026Research Engineer, external service provider to the JRCBuilt SeDaFuV, an open-source C++ proof of concept that identifies and tracks UAVs by fusing radar, RF, optical and acoustic streams.Piksel S.r.l. for the European Commission Joint Research Centre
- Designed for sensor resilience and cybersecurity; released as self-hostable open source.
- Reproducible experiments in Docker; GitLab CI/CD pipelines deploying to a private OpenShift cloud.
Bari, Italy - 2024Research Engineer — RESTART ITA-NTNStudied hybrid terrestrial/non-terrestrial architectures for 5G-Advanced and 6G, focusing on handover and radio resource management across LEO/GEO constellations (3GPP Rel-17+).CNIT — National Inter-University Consortium for Telecommunications
Bari, Italy - 2024Research TraineeBuilt a counter-UAS platform to protect critical infrastructure, integrating DeDrone detection hardware and PTZ cameras.European Commission, Joint Research Centre
- Hybrid Python/C++ backend aggregating sensor streams; MQTT and WebSocket for real-time distribution.
- Monitoring interface in Nuxt.js and Leaflet.
Geel, Belgium - 2023–2025R&D Embedded & Wireless EngineerDeveloped MANET architectures so UAVs, rovers and ground control stations interoperate, on NVIDIA Jetson Orin and Nano.Polytechnic University of Bari
- Routing firmware and mobile radio stack configuration for autonomous systems.
- ROS 2 framework for low-latency video from ZED 2 stereo and PTZ cameras over Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax, 5 GHz).
Bari, Italy - 2023C++ ConsultantModernised C++11 codebases to C++20 with Qt and .NET 5, through systematic code review and mentoring on RAII and smart pointers.E80 Group S.p.A.
Bari, Italy - 2023Google Summer of Code contributor“IUNS-3 5G NR”: refactored APIs and added helpers to simplify 5G RAN scenario setup in ns-3’s NR module, mentored by the University of Washington and CTTC.ns-3 Network Simulator
Remote - 2022–2023Freelance Quality Assurance TesterFunctional, exploratory and black-box testing of software and industrial prototypes, with reproducible bug reports ahead of release.Italian software organisations
Remote - 2020–2021Research Assistant — H2020 GUARDDesigned identity and access management for digital service chains with WSO2, and open-source Apache Kafka security plugins using JWT/OAuth2 and time-bound ACLs.CNIT — National Inter-University Consortium for Telecommunications
Bari, Italy - 2019–2021Research Assistant — PICO & PRO projectTelecommunication architectures for Industry 4.0 and the Internet of Drones, combining SDN and information-centric networking.Polytechnic University of Bari, Telematics Lab
- Led the evolution of the IoD-Sim simulator (C++/Python on ns-3).
- Built a hybrid IP/ICN middleware in Kotlin and an IoT monitoring platform for LoRaWAN sensors (Angular, Mapbox, MQTT).
- Automated nested OpenStack deployments with Ansible.
Bari, Italy - 2019–2020Software Engineer, Railway DiagnosticsPrototyped a stereovision railway-diagnostics system with deep learning (TensorFlow, OpenCV, CUDA, OpenMP).ESIM S.r.l.
- Pantograph-inspection integration work won the Best Poster Award on Impact of AI Innovation at IDE19.
- Keycloak-based central authentication; MQTT IoT links over GSM-R, LTE and ZigBee.
Bari, Italy - 2018–2019Systems and Software Engineering InternBuilt an OpenStack IaaS platform, automated operations with Ansible, and ran the on-premise network and virtualisation stack.ESIM S.r.l.
Bari, Italy
Teaching
- 2026LecturerTaught Security Program Management & Operations in the Master in Cyber Security Management.LUM University
Bari, Italy - 2022–2025Adjunct ProfessorTaught the master’s modules Ethical Hacking Laboratory and Security by Design, with supporting lectures in Signal Theory.Polytechnic University of Bari
- Industry training on modern C++ for E80 Group and on DENSO WAVE VS-060 robot programming.
- Designed LPI Linux Essentials courses on open-source system administration.
Bari, Italy
Education
- 2021–2025PhD in Electrical and Information EngineeringThesis: “Design and experimental evaluation of unmanned aircraft systems communications”. Funded by a competitive university scholarship.Polytechnic University of Bari
- Presented research at SSIE 2022 (Brixen), GTTI 2022 (Padua) and EuCNC 2024 (Antwerp).
- Ran IoD-Sim and SDN laboratory seminars for master’s students.
Bari, Italy - 2019–2021MSc in Telecommunications Engineering (Cybersecurity)110/110 cum laude. Thesis: “Design of an Internet of Drones (IoD) Architecture and Performance Analysis of an Enabling Simulation Platform”.Polytechnic University of Bari
Bari, Italy - 2015–2019BSc in Computer and Automation EngineeringThesis: “Implementation and coding of a simulator for the Internet of Drones”. Built telemetry for the Poliba Corse Formula SAE car (C++/Qt, Buildroot, CAN bus).Polytechnic University of Bari
Bari, Italy
Community service
- 2025Organiser, DevFest Bari 2025Reviewed and selected speakers (30% acceptance), shaped the agenda and added networking formats beyond talks.Google Developer Group Bari
Bari, Italy - 2016–2019Fedora Project AmbassadorPackaging, testing and translation for Fedora Linux; co-organised Linux Day 2019 in Bari.Fedora Project
Bari, Italy
Awards
- 2022“Luciano Catalano” Award for Best Master’s ThesisOpera Pia Monte di Pietà, Molfetta
- 2020CyberChallenge.IT — 2nd place, university finalCINI Cybersecurity National Lab
- 2019Best Poster Award on Impact of AI Innovation, IDE19ESIM S.r.l. team
Certifications
- 2022EU UAS Pilot Licence — Open category A1/A3DAC Luxembourg
- 2022LPI Linux EssentialsLinux Professional Institute
- 2022Microsoft Certified: Azure AI FundamentalsMicrosoft
- 2021Licensed Information Engineer (Section A)Polytechnic University of Bari
- 2020CompTIA Linux+CompTIA
- 2020Microsoft Certified: Azure FundamentalsMicrosoft
Skills
- Languages
- C++ (11–20) · C (C89, C11) · Python · Bash · Java · Kotlin · TypeScript · Rust · C#
- Telecom research
- ns-3 · 5G NR / LTE · OpenAirInterface · srsRAN · USRP SDR · Keysight PROPSIM · Vicon motion capture
- Embedded and robotics
- NVIDIA Jetson · ROS 2 · STM32 · ESP32
- Platforms
- Linux · Docker · OpenShift · Ansible · OpenStack · Microsoft Azure · Keycloak · GitLab CI/CD
- Data and messaging
- Apache Kafka · RabbitMQ · MQTT · OpenCV · PyTorch · Keras
Languages
- Italian
- Native
- English
- C1
Memberships
- IEEE — Communications Society, Vehicular Technology Society, Young Professionals