Michael Soprano

Michael Soprano

Postdoctoral Research Fellow

University of Udine

About

Welcome to my personal webpage. I am a PostDoc at the University of Udine, affiliated with the Social, Media, Data & Crowd Laboratory. I hold a Ph.D. in Computer Science, Mathematics, and Physics.

My research interests center around Human Computation, Crowdsourcing, and Information Retrieval. At present, I am focusing on using crowdsourcing to address the ever-increasing challenge of misinformation spread.

In my free time, I enjoy discovering new books and working toward becoming a better runner, hiker, and skier.

You can download my Curriculum Vitae in English or Italian. Feel free to also check out my Master's, Bachelor's, and High School theses (in Italian).

Interests
  • Human Computation
  • Crowdsourcing
  • Information Retrieval
Education
  • PhD in Computer Science, Mathematics and Physics, Cum Laude, Nov. 2019 - Jan. 2023

    University of Udine, Udine, Italy.

  • Master Degree in Computer Science, 109/110, Mar. 2015 - Mar. 2018

    University of Udine, Udine, Italy.

  • Bachelor Degree in Web Technologies and Multimedia, 101/110, Oct. 2011 - Mar. 2015

    University of Udine, Udine, Italy.

  • High School Diploma in Computer Science, 77/100, Oct. 2006 - Jun. 2011

    I.S.I.S. Raimondo D’Aronco, Gemona del Friuli, Italy.

Experience

 
 
 
 
 
Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Dec 2023 – Present Udine, Italy
Definition of an evaluation framework for misinformation detection systems, considering various aspects such as the creation of appropriately labeled datasets, addressing biases in dataset definition, and establishing suitable evaluation measures that specifically consider the concept of truthfulness in information.
 
 
 
 
 
Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Mar 2023 – Nov 2023 Udine, Italy
Research project focused on exploring conversational agent-based eGovernment applications for the Italian public administration, with a particular emphasis on healthcare.
 
 
 
 
 
Self-employed Worker
Jan 2022 – Mar 2022 Udine, Italy
Development of a web application dedicated to the comparability and reproducibility of research results in the field of combinatorial optimization.
 
 
 
 
 
Research Fellow
Jun 2018 – Oct 2019 Udine, Italy
Research project co-funded by SISSA Medialab is dedicated to the design, implementation, and evaluation of an ecosystem that provides an alternative to the standard peer review activity in the scholarly publishing process.
 
 
 
 
 
Self-employed Worker
Aug 2017 – Feb 2018 Udine, Italy
Development as a full-stack web developer of a web application for managing and visualizing financial assets.
 
 
 
 
 
Self-employed Worker
Jun 2017 – Feb 2019 Udine, Italy
Design, development, and maintenance as a full-stack web developer of various types of web applications and a chatbot.
 
 
 
 
 
Self-employed Worker
Troublezine
Nov 2015 – Feb 2016 Udine, Italy
Design, development, and maintenance as a full-stack web developer of a blog that offers news and events related to music.

Visits

 
 
 
 
 
Visiting Student
Mar 2022 – Jul 2022 Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Visiting period during PhD studies.

Metrics

Google Scholar Scopus ACM Digital Library
Articles 24 19 16
Citations 309 168 92
Citations / Article 12.87 8.84 5.75
h-index 8 6 -
i10-index 7 - -

Last update: October 8, 2024

Publications

View details

Academic Activity

  • Organizational Roles:

    • 21th Italian Research Conference on Digital Libraries (IRCDL 2025), Udine, February 20-21, 2025. Website Chair. https://ircdl2025.uniud.it/
    • 14th Italian Information Retrieval Workshop (IIR 2024), Udine, September 5-6, 2024. Organizer and Website Chair. https://iir2024.uniud.it/
    • CARE: Conversational Agents and Responsible Ethics in Healthcare - Workshop at the European Federation of Medical Informatics Special Topic Conference 2023 (EFMI STC 2023), Turin, October 27, 2023. Organizer.
    • Fourth Symposium on Biases in Human Computation and Crowdsourcing (BHCC 2022), Online. Organizer, Proceedings Chair, and Website Chair. https://bhcc2022.org/
  • Program Committee Roles:

    • 12th AAAI Conference on Human Computation and Crowdsourcing (HCOMP 2024), Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA. Full Papers Track.
    • 47th International ACM SIGIR Conference on Research and Development in Information Retrieval (SIGIR 2024), Washington D.C., USA. Full and Short Papers Tracks.
    • 45th European Conference on Information Retrieval (ECIR 2023), Dublin, Ireland. Short Papers Track.
    • 45th International ACM SIGIR Conference on Research and Development in Information Retrieval (SIGIR 2022), Madrid, Spain. Short Papers Track.
    • Third Symposium on Biases in Human Computation and Crowdsourcing (BHCC 2022), Online.
  • Reviewer:

    • Information Processing & Management (2023). Journal ISSN: 0306-4573. Contribution registered on ORCID profile.
    • Springer Nature Scientific Report (2023). Journal ISSN: 2045-2322.
    • 13th Italian Information Retrieval Workshop (IIR 2023), Pisa, Italy.
    • Information Processing & Management (2022). Journal ISSN: 0306-4573.
    • Tenth AAAI Conference on Human Computation and Crowdsourcing (HCOMP 2022), Online.
    • Conference and Labs of the Evaluation Forum (CLEF 2022), Bologna, Italy.
    • 44th European Conference on Information Retrieval (ECIR 2022), Stavanger, Norway.
    • Second Symposium on Biases in Human Computation and Crowdsourcing (BHCC 2021), Delft, Netherlands (Online).
    • 30st ACM International Conference On Information And Knowledge Management (CIKM 2021), Online.
    • 32nd ACM Conference on Hypertext and Social Media (HT 2021), Online.
    • 29th ACM International Conference On Information And Knowledge Management (CIKM 2020), Galway, Ireland (Online).
    • 31st ACM Conference on Hypertext and Social Media (HT 2020), Online.
    • 15th Italian Research Conference On Digital Libraries (IRCDL 2019), Pisa.
  • Mentoring:

    • Co-supervision of the theses of 7 Master’s (MSc) and 13 Bachelor’s (BSc) students, as well as various advanced projects and seminars.
  • Affiliations:

Honors & Grants

  • Student Grant to attend the 15th ACM International Conference on Web Search and Data Mining. Online (Held remotely due to COVID-19). Provided by WSDM. Free conference subscription.
  • Student Grant to attend the 29th ACM International Conference On Information And Knowledge Management (CIKM 2020), Galway, Ireland. Online (Held remotely due to COVID-19). Provided by CIKM. Free conference subscription.
  • Volunteer at the 43rd International ACM SIGIR Conference on Research and Development in Information Retrieval (SIGIR 2020), Xi’an, China. Online (Held remotely due to COVID-19). Provided by SIGIR. Free conference subscription.

Contact

  • michael.soprano@uniud.it
  • Via delle Scienze 206, Udine (Italy), 33100
  • Rizzi Building, 2° Floor, South Node, Lab SMDC (LC2-04-DE), A2 32 Room