Special Session 2

SPECIAL SESSION #2

Santi Concetto Pavone

University of Catania, Italy

• santi.pavone@unict.it

Martina Teresa Bevacqua

Università Mediterranea di Reggio Calabria, Italy

• martina.bevacqua@unirc.it

Michele Ambrosanio

Università di Napoli Parthenope, Italy

• michele.ambrosanio@uniparthenope.it

Nicola Curreli

Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia - Genova, Italy

• nicola.curreli@ieee.org

The aim of this special section is to promote contributions of Young Researchers in the field of Technologies for Defense and Security. The idea is to attract participation and collaboration of young researchers from academia, industry, defense and government agencies, that will promote defense and security interests with opportunities to increase technical depth and breadth as well as networking. As such, the session is expected to be multidisciplinary. The session collects papers authored and presented by researchers younger than 35 years and candidate to the “Best Paper presented by a Young Researcher” award. The award as well as the session are promoted by the IEEE Affinity Group Young Professionals - Italy Section.

Santi Concetto Pavone, (Senior Member, IEEE) received the B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees (both summa cum laude) in electronics engineering from the University of Messina, Messina, Italy, in 2010 and 2012, respectively, and the Ph.D. degree (with the additional label of “Doctor Europaeus”) in Information Engineering and Science (ING-INF/02 – Electromagnetics Engineering) from the University of Siena, Siena, Italy, in 2015. He was a visiting Ph.D. student and a visiting Researcher with the Institut d’Électronique et de Télécommunications de Rennes, University of Rennes 1, Rennes, France, in 2015 and 2020, respectively. From 2016 to July 2019, he was a Postdoctoral Researcher with the Laboratory of Applied Electromagnetics, University of Siena. From August 2019 to September 2023, he has been an Assistant Professor with the Department of Electrical, Electronics, and Information Engineering, University of Catania, Italy. Since October 2023, he is a Senior Assistant Professor (Tenure Track) at the same Department.
His current research interests include fundamental electromagnetic theory, scattering theory, RADAR design at millimeter waves, high frequency techniques, focusing systems, nondiffractive localized pulses, and reconfigurable antennas.
He was a recipient of the ESF Research Networking Programme NEWFOCUS Scholarship in 2015 and the IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society Student Award, Chapter Central-Southern Italy, in 2014. In 2017, he was a finalist for the Best Paper Award in “Electromagnetics and Antenna Theory” at the 11th European Conference on Antennas and Propagation, Paris. In 2018, he was a co-recipient of the Best Paper Award in “Electromagnetics and Antenna Theory” at the 12th European Conference on Antennas and Propagation, London, U.K. In 2019, he was the recipient of the “Young Scientist Award” at the 41st Progress in Electromagnetics Research Symposium, held in Rome, Italy. In 2020, he got the National Scientific Habilitation for Associate Professorship of Electromagnetic Fields by the Italian Ministry of University and Research (MUR). In 2020, 2021 and 2022 he has been selected among the outstanding reviewers of the IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation. In 2021 and 2022, he has been recipient of the “Young Scientist Awards” at the XXXIV General Assembly and Scientific Symposium of the International Union of Radio Science (URSI-GASS 2021), and at 3rd URSI Atlantic Asia-Pacific Radio Science Meeting (URSI AT-AP RASC 2022), respectively. Since 2024, he has been nominated Full Member of the Sigma-Xi Honor Society. From 2023, he is Chair of the AG “Young Professionals” of the IEEE Italy Section. Since 2022, he is also a URSI Senior Member. He serves as an Associate Editor for IEEE Access, IET Electronics Letters, and Frontiers in Antennas and Propagation.

Martina Teresa Bevacqua, was born in Reggio Calabria, Italy, in 1988. She received from the University Mediterranea of Reggio Calabria, Italy, the M.S. Laurea degree (summa cum laude) in electronic engineering in July 2012 and the Ph.D in Information Engineering in May 2016. She is currently working as Associate Professor at the University Mediterranea of Reggio di Calabria. Her research activity mainly concerns electromagnetic inverse problems, with particular interest in: 1) inverse scattering problems from both a theoretical and applicative point of view; 2) field intensity shaping in non-homogeneous and unknown scenario for hyperthermia treatment planning, wireless power transfer and MRI shimming.
Dr. Bevacqua was the recipient of the Barzilai Award from the Italian Electromagnetics Society in 2014 and Young Scientist Award during the 2018 URSI Atlantic Radio Science Meeting. Moreover, she received the Honorable Mention from IEEE-Antennas and Propagation Society (Central and Southern Italy Chapter) in the 2016 best Student Member paper competition. She was also the recipient of the Mojgan Daneshmand Grants by Antennas and Propagation Society (APS-URSI 2023) and again the Young Scientist award by International Union of Radio Science (EMTS 2023). Moreover, in November 2023 she received the “2023 IEEE Antennas and Propagation Ulrich L. Rohde Best Innovative Conference Paper Awards on Antennas Measurements and Applications” during the 2023 IEEE International Conference on Antenna Measurements and Applications.
From April 2023, she is also Vice-Chair of the IEEE Young Professional Affinity Group of the IEEE Italy Section.

Michele Ambrosanio, (Member, IEEE) was born in Naples, Italy, 1987. He achieved is Bachelor’s and Master’s in Biomedical Engineering (both with Honours) at the University of Naples “Federico II” in 2009 and 2012, respectively, and his PhD in Information Engineering at the University of Naples “Parthenope” in 2016.
From April to July 2015, he was a visiting PhD at School of Natural and Mathematical Sciences, King’s College, London, and from July to November 2015 at MediWiSe (Medical Wireless Sensing) Ltd. In September-October 2017, he was a visiting scientist at MediWise, working on the development of microwave imaging techniques for biomedical applications.
He was member of COST Action MiMed (TD1301) “Development of a European-based Collaborative Network to Accelerate Technological, Clinical and Commercialisation Progress in the Area of Medical Microwave Imaging”, and of COST Action TU1208, “Civil Engineering Applications of Ground Penetrating Radar”, from 2014 to 2016.
Currently, he is a Tenure Track Associate Professor at the University of Naples “Parthenope”. His research interest includes electromagnetic inverse scattering for non-destructive testing and imaging, and advanced biomedical signal and image processing (magnetoencephalography, magnetic resonance imaging, ultrasound imaging).
He has been an IEEE member since 2013, a Co-founder and a Member of the National Bioengineering Group (GNB) from 2019 and a Member of the Italian Telecommunications and Information Technologies Association (GTTI) since 2021. In 2017 he won the best poster prize during the 2nd Italian Radar and Remote Sensing Workshop sponsored by the IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society. Since April 2023, he is Secretary of the IEEE Young Professional Affinity Group of the IEEE Italy Section.

Nicola Curreli, received the M.Sc. degree from the University of Genoa, Genoa, Italy, in 2016, and the Ph.D. degree in electronic engineering from the University of Cagliari, Cagliari, Italy, and the Italian Institute of Technology—IIT, Genoa, in 2020. After completing the Ph.D. degree, he held a Fellow position with Graphene Labs department—IIT, where he contributed to the Graphene Core 2 Project as part of the Graphene Flagship initiative. In 2019, he was a Visiting Researcher with the Physics and Engineering Departments, Columbia University, New York City, NY, USA, as part of the Marie Sklodowska-Curie RISE Action “SONAR H2020”. Between 2022 and 2023, he continued his involvement in SONAR H2020 as a Visiting Researcher with the Molecular Foundry at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, USA. Currently, he is a Researcher with the Functional Nanosystems—IIT. Since 2023, he has been a recipient of the Marie Sklodowska-Curie Global Fellowship “2DTWIST”. The fellowship is in collaboration with the Transport at Nanoscale Interfaces Laboratory at Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology (Empa) in Switzerland. His research interests include the study of low-dimensional materials, their characterization, and their application in the field of photonics, and the design, implementation, and analysis of linear and nonlinear integrated optical, microwave devices, and antennas. Dr. Curreli received the Young Scientists Award at the General Assembly and Scientific Symposium of URSI in 2022. He is also a member of the Topical Advisory Panel of Photonics and is an Academic Editor for the Journal of Nanotechnology and the International Journal of Optics. He is a part of the Committee of the Young Professionals Affinity Group of IEEE R8 Italy Section.