I am Docente-Ricercatore (maître d'enseignement et de recherche MER/Lecturer-Researcher) at the Institute of Digital Technologies for Communication (ITDxC), Faculty of Communication, Culture and Society, Università della Svizzera italiana (USI), Lugano, Switzerland.
I got my M.Sc. Degree in Computer Science, from Università degli studi di Milano and my Ph.D. at Università della Svizzera italiana,
Faculty of Communication Sciences in 2003 with a thesis on ''Interaction and Communication among Autonomous Agents in Multiagent Systems''.
Research Interests
My research interests are in the area of Artificial Intelligence, in particular in the field of Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems (MAS):
- Normative Multiagent Systems, Artificial Institutions for the specification of Open Interaction Systems, Environments for MAS;
- Policy frameworks for regulating, by means of agreements, contracts, and licenses, the exchange and use of digital assets on the Web;
- Semantics of Agent Communication Languages (ACL)
- Semantic Web Technology and Service Oriented Architecture applied to the development of open distributed systems;
- Normative Systems applied in the field of regulating acces to data available on the Web (Data Access Control);
Dr Fornara has been in the program committee (PC) of numerous international conferences and workshops in the field of Multiagent systems. She has authored 50 scientific papers published in international peer-reviewed scientific journals, as contributions to peer-reviewed books, and in peer-reviewed conference/workshop proceedings in the research area of Multiagent Systems, Semantic Web Technologies, and Access Control.
Projects
- In the initial part of my doctoral studies, I was supported by a FP4 EU project at IDISA (Dalle Molle Institute for Artificial Intelligence).
- I was supported as Postdoctoral researcher by three research projects.
- I directed as co-applicant two Swiss National Science Foundation (SNF) projects from May 2009 to May 2013.
- From 2013 to 2015, I was the principal investigator of a project funded by the Swiss State Secretariat for Education Research (SERI) within the COST Action IS1004 WEBDATANET.
- From 2015 to 2016, I was principal investigator of a project funded by the Hasler Foundation.
- Currently, I am the principal investigator of the 4-years SNF project A Framework for Automatic Monitoring of Norms and Agreements Concerning Digital Assets in the Web of Data.
Teaching
- Since 2000, I have been teaching assistant and lecturer of courses on digital technologies for communication at Università della Svizzera italiana, Faculty of Communication Science.
- From 2005 to 2020 I was teaching assistant and lecturer of database courses at Politecnico di Milano (Faculty of Computer Engineering).
- In 2010 and 20111 I was lecturer in the Degree of Advanced Studies in Internet Applications at Scuola universitaria professionale della Svizzera italiana (SUPSI).
Service, Program Committees
AAA-I, AAMAS, IJCAI, ECAI; EUMAS, PRIMA, COINE.
Memberships:
- Steering committee of COIN (Coordination, Organization, Institutions and Norms in agent systems) Workshop series.
- From 2010 to 2012 I was Substitute Member for Switzerland of the Management Committee of the COST Action IC0801 on Agreement Technologies.
- From 2011 to 2015 I was Member for Switzerland of the Management Committee of the COST Action IS1004 on WEBDATANET: web-based data-collection - methodological challenges, solutions and implementations.