I am professor of Database Systems at the Dipartimento di Elettronica, Informazione e Bioingegneria (DEIB) of Politecnico di Milano. I was visiting professor at the Computer Science Department of Stanford University (1983-1990). I was the chairman of the Computer Science Section of DEI (1992-2004), and the chairman of LaureaOnLIne, a fully online curriculum in Computer Engineering (2004-2008).
I was one of the creators (2004-2007), then vice-director (2007-2010) and then director of Alta Scuola Politecnica, the school of excellence for top-level master students selected from Engineering, Architecture, and Design Faculties of Politecnico di Milano and Politecnico di Torino (October 2010 – September 2013).
I was associate editor of ACM-Transactions on Database Systems and IEEE-Transactions on Software Engineering, and I am currently an associated editor of several international journals. I am co-editor in chief (with Mike Carey) of the book series “Data Centric Systems and Applications”(Springer-Verlag), which now includes about 25 books.
I am the recipient of the ACM-SIGMOD “Edward T. Codd Innovation Award” (New York, June 26, 2013). I am an ACM Fellow (2013) and a member of Academia Europaea (since 2011). I am a member of the Academia Lombarda di Scienze e Lettere (since 2019), a nominator for the Japan Price (since 2015) and VinFuture Price (since 2023).
I am the co-founder of the Extending Data Base Technology (EDBT) Endowment; has been the General Chair of the first EDBT Conference, which took place in Venice in 1988; I have also been a member, for twelve years, of the VLDB Endowment, and general PC chairman of VLDB 2001 in Roma. I have been regularly on the PCs of VLDB, SIGMOD, ICDE, EDBT conferences. I am a member of the ACM-SIGMOD Award Committee.
I was a member of the Executive Committee of LIFC-Lombardia (Lega Italiana Fibrosi Cistica (April 2013 – April 2019). Throighout my life, I have done voluntary research and supported irganizations at the local (Palo Alto association, LIFC-Lombardy), national (LIFC Italy, Fondazione Gibrosi Cistica, Cystic Fibrosis Foundation), and European level to help fighting cystic fibrosis. I developed and distributed world-wide several Cystic Fibrosis Data Base prototypes (since 1986, work with Warren Worwick, MD).
I am married with Teresa and have two children, Paolo and Gaby. I run marathons (25 in total, 12 consecutive editions in Milano, and then New York, San Francisco, Luxor, Barcellona, Nice, Venice, Rome, Florence, and then Berlin) and love all kinds of musics, including classic, rock and jazz. I am affiliated with the club “Abbadiani Itineranti” (travellers to wherever Claudio Abbado conducted concerts). I was “Sportsman of the year” of the Politecnico di Milano in 2009 (but I am not sure that I really deserved it…).