My research focuses on the study of compressor-based measures of repetitiveness, with applications in data compression, text indexing, combinatorial pattern matching, and bioinformatics. More generally, I am interested in problems on strings, both from a combinatorial and an algorithmic perspective.
Currently, I am a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Palermo, Dipartimento di Matematica e Informatica, supervised by Prof. Marinella Sciortino. In the same department, I am a teacher at the bachelor's programs in Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence.
In 2023, I earned my PhD in Mathematics and Computer Science with the thesis "Repetitiveness Measures based on String Attractors and Burrows-Wheeler Transform: Properties and Applications".
I have been in the organizing committee of the international conferences ICTCS 2023 and CIAA 2025, and in the program committee of CIAA 2025.
Recently, our work "Smallest Suffixient Sets as a Repetitiveness Measure", coauthored with Gonzalo Navarro and Cristian Urbina, has been awarded as the best paper at the conference SPIRE 2025.
I am an invited speaker at the upcoming conference Journées montoises d'informatique théorique 2026
My research has been focused on the study of the relationship between the structural combinatorial properties of strings and the efficiency of different repetitiveness measures. The results of this study have found applications in data compression, text indexing, combinatorial pattern matching, combinatorics on words, and bioinformatics.
More in detail, I have studied properties of measures related to subword complexities, string attractors, Burrows-Wheeler Transform, copy-paste-based compressors, and suffixient sets, and how these are resilient to operations on strings.
More generally, I am interested in any problem on strings, both from a combinatorial and an algorithmic perspective.
Research fields
Data Compression and Compressed Text Indexes, Repetitiveness Measures, Algorithms on Strings, Formal Languages, Combinatorics on Words, Bioinformatics
L. Carfagna, G. Manzini, G. Romana, M. Sciortino, C. Urbina: Generalization of Repetitiveness Measures for Two-Dimensional Strings.
Theory of Comput. Syst. 70(2). Springer (2025)
S. Giuliani, S. Inenaga, Zs. Lipták, G. Romana, M. Sciortino, C. Urbina: Bit catastrophes for the Burrows-Wheeler Transform.
Theory of Comput. Syst. 69(2), pp.19. Springer (2025)
E. Biagi, D. Cenzato, Zs. Lipták, G. Romana: On the number of equal-letter runs of the Bijective Burrows-Wheeler Transform.
Theoretical Computer Science 1027, pp. 115004. Elsevier (2025)
F. Gheeraert, G. Romana, M. Stipulanti: String Attractors of Some Simple-Parry Automatic Sequences.
Theory of Comput. Syst. 68, 1601-1621. Springer (2024)
J. Cassaigne, F. Gheeraert, A. Restivo, G. Romana, M. Sciortino, M. Stipulanti: New string attractor-based complexities for infinite words.
J. Comb. Theory - Series A 208. Elsevier (2024)
S. Mantaci, A. Restivo, G. Romana, G. Rosone, M. Sciortino: A combinatorial view on string attractors.
Theor. Comput. Sci. 850: 236-248. Elsevier (2021)
G. Castiglione, S. Mantaci, A. Restivo, G. Romana, M. Sciortino: Efficient Computation of Discriminative Absent Words for String Collections . DLT 2026 (accepted, to appear)
G. Fici, E. Gabory, G. Romana, M. Sciortino: Unclustered BWTs of any Length over Non-Binary Alphabets. CPM 2026 (accepted, to appear)
G. Navarro, G. Romana, C. Urbina: Smallest Suffixient Sets as a Repetitiveness Measure. SPIRE 2025: 217/232
G. Fici, G. Romana, M. Sciortino, C. Urbina: Morphisms and BWT-Run Sensitivity. MFCS 2025: 10:1-10:18
G. Fici, S.Mantaci, A. Restivo, G. Romana, G. Rosone, M. Sciortino: BWT and Combinatorics on Words. The Expanding World of Compressed Data 2025: A Festschrift for Giovanni Manzini’s 60th Birthday,
L. Carfagna, G. Manzini, G. Romana, M. Sciortino, C. Urbina: Generalization of Repetitiveness Measures for Two-Dimensional Strings. SPIRE 2024: 57/72
D. G. Dolce, S. Mantaci, G. Romana, G. Rosone, M. Sciortino: Novel XBWT-based Distance Measures for Labeled Trees. ICTCS 2024: 169-180
G. Romana: Algorithmic View on Circular String Attractors. ICTCS 2023: 169-180
E. Biagi, D. Cenzato, Zs. Lipták, G. Romana: On the Number of Equal-Letter Runs of the Bijective Burrows-Wheeler Transform. ICTCS 2023: 129-142
G. Fici, G. Romana, M. Sciortino, C. Urbina: On the Impact of Morphisms on BWT-Runs. CPM 2023: 10:1-10:18
S. Giuliani, S. Inenaga, Zs. Lipták, G. Romana, M. Sciortino, C. Urbina: Bit catastrophes for the Burrows-Wheeler Transform. DLT 2023 86-99
F. Gheeraert, G. Romana, M. Stipulanti: String Attractors of Fixed Points of k-Bonacci-Like Morphisms. WORDS 2023 192-205
A. Restivo, G. Romana, M. Sciortino: String Attractors and Infinite Words. LATIN 2022: 426-442
S. Giuliani, G. Romana, M. Rossi: Computing Maximal Unique Matches with the r-index. SEA 2022: 22:1-16
A. Frosini, I. Mancini, S. Rinaldi, G. Romana, M. Sciortino: Logarithmic Equal-Letter Runs for BWT of Purely Morphic Words. DLT 2022: 1-13
S.Mantaci, A. Restivo, G. Romana, G. Rosone, M. Sciortino: String Attractors and Combinatorics on Words. ICTCS 2019: 57-71
M.-P. Béal, M. Crochemore, G. Romana: Checking and producing Word Attractors. arxiv:2509.08503
Dipartimento di Matematica e Informatica, room 205
Via Archirafi, 34
90123 Palermo - ITALY
Phone: (+39) 091238 91023
email: giuseppe.romana01@unipa.it
giuseppe.romana01@community.unipa.it