INVITED Speakers

Vincenzo Capasso was full Professor at the University of Bari, and at the University of Milan “la Statale”, in Probability and Mathematical Statistics.

Retired since 2014, he is currently Senior Scientist at the University of Milan “la Statale”, Department of Mathematics and ADAMSS (Interdisciplinary Center for Advanced Applied Mathematical and Statistical Sciences).

He received the Honorary Doctorate in Mathematics in Science and Technology from Lappeenranta University of Technology, Finland (2008).

His research interests cover different areas of Mathematics and its applications, with particular attention to Biology, Medicine, Environment, Industry.

He has published over 150 articles in international journals, and about ten volumes for international publishers as reported (in part) on the website (http://ams.mathematik.uni-bielefeld.de/mathscinet/).

Tonio Di Battista is Full Professor of Statistics at the Department of Economic, Managerial and Statistical Sciences at the University "G. D'Annunzio" of Chieti-Pescara. His primary research interests lie in statistical methods for environmental phenomena, with a particular focus on biodiversity estimation using encounter-based sampling techniques. Another major area of investigation concerns the application of statistical methodologies for functional data analysis in environmental contexts.

He has held several institutional roles, including Director of the University Research Center for Evaluation and Development (CERVAS) and member of the Executive Board of the Italian Statistical Society (SIS). He is currently Prorector for the Pescara campus and teaches the courses "Foundations of Statistics" in the undergraduate program Economics, and "Methods and Techniques for Evaluation" in the program Educational Sciences.

HE serves on the Editorial Board of several scientific journals, including Journal of Mathematics and Statistics, Electronic Journal of Applied Statistical Analysis, Global & Local Economic Review, and Italian Journal of Applied Statistics. He is also Associate Editor of the Springer Journal Statistical Methods & Applications. Additionally, he is a member of the Scientific Committee of various international conferences, where he has frequently been invited as a keynote speaker.

Veronica Distefano is researcher in Statistics at the Telematic University “Pegaso”, Faculty of Economics and Law, Department of Management and Economics since February 2025. Previously, she has been researcher in Statistics at the Department of Economic Sciences of the University of Salento and at the same University, she has held a PhD degree in Statistics, and worked as PostDoc fellow in several research projects aiming to develop statistical models for reducing the dimensionality and forecasting of spatial data.

Since 2012 she has been member of the Italian Statistical Society (SIS) and since 2019 she has been member of research unit Complexity and Data Analysis at the ECLT (European Centre for Living Technology) of the "Ca' Foscari" University of Venice where she has participated as PostDoc fellow in several projects and collaborations at national and international levels.

Her research interests have regarded the development of new analytical methodologies (in machine learning, dimension reduction and model-based genetic algorithm for predictive model selection) to analyze the information contained in different type of data for big data sets. 

She is author of several publications as international journal articles, book chapters and conference abstracts  

J. Jaime Gómez-Hernández graduated as a civil engineer in 1983 from the Technical University of Valencia in Spain and continued his graduate studies at Stanford University, where he received an M.S. in Applied Hydrogeology (1987) and a Ph.D. in Geostatistics Applied to Natural Resources Characterization (1990). 

He is currently a professor of Hydrogeology at the Technical University of Valencia, where he heads the Group of Hydrogeology of the Institute for Water and Environmental Engineering. 

His research has focused on developing models that would allow a better understanding of how groundwater behaves, a subject on which he has published more than 100 papers. 

He was distinguished as Centennial Teaching Assistant by Stanford University in 1990; he received the Prize for Research and Technology in Wastes by the Regional Government of Valencia in 1999, the 2020 Krumbein Medal by the International Association of Mathematical Geosciences (IAMG) —the highest distinction of the IAMG, given biennially—, he has been appointed the 2021 Distinguished Lecturer of the IAMG, he received the UPV Social Council Prize for Knowledge Improvement in 2020, he has received the 2020 Prince Sultan bin Abdulaziz International Prize for Water in the Groundwater section —possibly the highest award for its prestige and financial endowment in water research, given biennially—, he was included in the 2021 Forbes list of 50 most internationally awarded Spaniards, and he has been recognized with the Pioneer in Groundwater award by the American Society of Civil Engineering. 

Dionissios Hristopulos is a Professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the Technical University of Crete and director of the Master's program in Machine Learning and Data Science.  

He holds a Diploma in Electrical Engineering (National Technical University of Athens) and a PhD in Physics (Princeton University). He has held appointments in the Department of Environmental Sciences and Engineering (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) and the Pulp and Paper Research Institute of Canada.  

Dionissios serves on the editorial boards of Computers & Geosciences (Elsevier) and Stochastic Environmental Research and Risk Assessment (Springer). 

He has co-authored more than 100 peer-reviewed publications and is the author of «Random Fields for Spatial Data Modeling: A Primer for Scientists and Engineers» (Springer, 2020).  

His research interests include spatiotemporal statistics, statistical physics, machine learning and applications.  In 2003 he shared the Johannes A. Van den Akker International Prize for Advances in Paper Physics. 

In 2024 he was awarded the Georges Matheron lectureship by the International Association of Mathematical Geosciences.

Klaus Nordhausen earned his Dipl.-Stat. degree from Universität Dortmund, Germany, in 2003, and his Ph.D. from the University of Tampere, Finland, in 2008. 

He held postdoctoral fellowships at both the University of Tampere and the University of Turku, Finland, before advancing to the position of Associate Professor at TU Wien, Austria. He is currently a Professor of Statistics at the University of Helsinki, Finland. 

His research interests include computational statistics, robust and nonparametric methods, and dimension reduction techniques for multivariate data, particularly in contexts involving complex dependencies such as time series, spatial data, and spatio-temporal data. 

He has authored over 100 scientific articles, edited two books, and serves on the editorial board of Data Science in Science and as an Associate Editor for the Journal of Multivariate Analysis.

Emilio Porcu is a professor of Statistics and Data Science at Khalifa University in Abu Dhabi. He previously held positions as a Professor of Statistics at Trinity College Dublin, Chair Professor of Spatial Statistics in Newcastle, and Professor in Chile. He previously covered positions in Spain, Italy, France, and Germany.

He has taught doctoral courses in several countries, including the prestigious Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich and the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

He is currently an Elected Senior Fellow at ADIA Lab in Abu Dhabi, an institution that boasts three Nobel Laureates and three Gordon Bell Prize winners (the Nobel Prize in Computer Science) as Fellows and Advisory Board members. He is also a Senior Fellow at the Abu Dhabi Biotechnology Research Center as well as a Fellow at ENGEOS (for climate change).

He has received several awards, including the Stuart Hunter Award from the Environmetrics Society and the Best Paper Award from the Mathematical Geosciences. He is an editor for five leading journals and is an Elected Fellow at prestigious institutions such as the Bernoulli Society.

He publishes in spatial statistics, data science, foundational AI, and mathematics. He currently has approximately 160 publications in leading journals such as the Journal of the American Statistical Association, the Journal of the Royal Society, The Annals of Statistics, Bernoulli, and Biometrika, among others. He has also published five books and given over 300 lectures worldwide.

Amílcar Soares is a Full Professor at the Instituto Superior Técnico (University of Lisbon) and a Visiting Professor at several other institutions in the UAE, Australia, and Brazil. 

He was a Distinguished Lecturer for the International Association of Mathematical Geosciences. Most of his R&D work focuses on geostatistics and spatial data science methods applied to environmental, mineral, and energy resource assessments. 

He has coordinated numerous international research projects in the field of mineral resource assessment, with critical mineral raw material resource assessment being among the latest projects in this field.

His most recent projects in the environmental and health fields have focused on extreme drought risk characterization and COVID-19 risk assessment.

Alfred Stein is professor in Spatial Statistics and Image Analysis at the Faculty of Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation (ITC), University of Twente. 

He received his MSc in mathematics and information science, with a specialization in applied statistics from Eindhoven University of Technology and his PhD from Wageningen University. 

He started his career at Wageningen University, where he became professor of mathematical and statistical methods in 2000. In 1995 he was appointed as a visiting professor at the Institute of ITC, which turned to a full professorship in 2002 the department of Earth Observation Science of. 

He has chaired the department for more than 15 years. His main interests are in spatial statistical and image analysis methods, with human, urban and environmental applications. 

He the editor-in-chief of Spatial Statistics, the leading platform in the domain of spatial statistics.