ISSC Jury
Gennaro Russo – CNS
Gennaro Russo is co-founder and director of the Center for Near Space of the Italian Institute for the Future, devoted to anticipation studies on the Expansion of Humanity in Space. He is member of the staff of DAC, the Campania Aerospace District, managing Space and Defense activities. He is member of the International Academy of Astronautics and in 2013, he co-founded Space Renaissance Italia assuming the role of president up to May 2015.
He is co-founder of TRANS-TECH, an SME devoted to technology transfer and very high-tech projects. He is co-conceiver and project manager of the HYPLANE project.
Gennaro Russo worked at CIRA, the Italian Aerospace Research Center, for some 25 years managing almost all space related programs, projects and facilities, mostly devoted to space transportation and reentry.
He led in particular the PRORA-USV program, playing the role of flight director for balloon-dropped trans-supersonic flight tests. He was designer of the 70MW SCIROCCO Plasma Wind Tunnel for duplicating reentry aerothermodynamics conditions.
At the beginning of his career, he worked for about ten years with the Microgravity Research Team led by Luigi G. Napolitano at University of Naples, designing, preparing and analyzing some experiments executed on board the ESA Spacelab.
Gennaro Russo is also the author of more than 150 papers presented and/or published at national and international congresses.
Maria Daniela Graziano – AIDAA
Maria Daniela Graziano is an Assistant Professor and Lecturer of Space Systems and Aerospace Program Management with the Department of Industrial Engineering of the University of Naples Federico II. Her research interests include satellite constellation analysis and design, mission design for EO missions, distributed synthetic aperture radar (SAR), maritime sea traffic monitoring by satellite data processing.
She has been involved in several research projects funded by national and international institutions (ASI, ESA, and Ministry of Defence) and her scientific production included more than 50 scientific papers published in distinguished international journals, conference proceedings, and book chapters, and frequently referenced in the literature.
Giuseppe Petrone – AIDAA
Giuseppe Petrone is Assistant professor in Aerospace Structure at the University of Napoli “Federico II”. His core research activities involve many fields of mechanical and aerospace engineering such as mechanical characterization, structural dynamics, structural-acoustic and damage detection techniques. All these studies are investigated always with analytical, numerical, and experimental approaches. Dr. Petrone has been involved in several research projects supported by the European Commission and Italian government in cooperation with many European Industrial and academic partners and he has collaborative research exchanges with several European and not Institutions.
Dr. Petrone is member of AIDAA administrative board, he belongs to Educational & Academy committee, he is reference of the local section AIDAA/Napoli and he belongs to Communication Editors and Management Board of “Aerotecnica Missili & Spazio” journal.
Alessandra Vernile – Eurisy
Alessandra Vernile is a young professional with a background in International Relations, Intelligence, and Space Policy. Alessandra took her first steps in the space sector in 2015, joining the European Space Agency (ESA) Strategy Department in Paris with a focus on Member States’ space policy developments.
In 2016, Alessandra was the recipient of the ASI-SIOI fellowship, bringing her to Vienna to work at the European Space Policy Institute (ESPI). There she investigated the role of private actors in the space sector and had the opportunity of learning more about the contribution of space technology to SDGs.
Currently, Alessandra works full-time at Eurisy, facilitating the uptake of satellite-based solutions by societal actors. Within the Space Generation Advisory Council (SGAC), Alessandra served as Project Groups Coordinator between 2018 and 2022. Since 2021, Alessandra has been a member of the IAF EO Technical Committee and is part of the organizing committee of the IAF Launchpad Mentorship Initiative.
Luigi Carrino – DAC
Luigi Carrino is professor of the disciplinary scientific sector ING-IND / 16 “Technologies and Processing Systems” at the University of Naples Federico II where he teaches “Technologies of Aerospace Materials” and “Technologies of Unconventional Materials”.
He is the author of over 250 scientific publications, mostly of an international nature, has published 3 books on innovative production technologies and edited a text on technology transfer. He has also published over 200 popular scientific articles in national and international journals.
Luigi Carrino is president of the Board of Directors of the Aerospace Technological District of Campania (DAC) – S.c.a.r.l. Advisor to the President of the Campania Regional Council for Aerospace policies and the strengthening and enhancement of the related supply chains. Member of the Board of Directors of the Mechatronics Industry Section of the Union of Industrialists of Naples. Coordinator of the National Committee of Aerospace Districts – CTNA.
Member of the Governing Body of the National Aerospace Technology Cluster, he is also Vice-president of the Campania Academy Aerospace Foundation and Member of the Scientific Committee of the Cluster Spring (Sustainable Processes and Resources for Innovation and National Growth). In the past, Luigi Carrino has also been the President of CIRA – Italian Aerospace Research Center.
Arianna Tibuzzi – Obloo
Arianna Tibuzzi holds a Ph.D. in Electronic Engineering from the University of Trento, and is Senior Investment Manager at Obloo/Venture Factory, a Venture Capital fund manager in the deeptech sector. Arianna spent 10 years as a researcher in interdisciplinary groups on microsystems, silicon technology and (bio)sensing topics, at FBK, INFN, CNR, Univ. of California Berkeley. A Fulbright grant in Technology Entrepreneurship in 2009 turned her career around, and she has been dedicated to startup support and technology transfer ever since.
Arianna has served as director of Officina dell’Innovazione della Provicina di Roma and as president of the international Alien Technology Transfer group, a deep tech innovation management and business creation consulting firm, which she has helped make a solid 120 professionals worldwide. She is also an investment expert and evaluator for the European Commission and other European funding bodies.
Radim Badsi – Groundspace
Radim is an entrepreneur with a background in ground segment design, spacecraft operations and satellite communications. He is the co-founder and CEO of Groundspace, a startup focusing on operations automation and mission support solutions. Radim has over ten years of experience designing innovative software solutions for communication satellite operators. He is currently based in Montpellier in southern France.
Roberto Paura – IIF
Roberto Paura is president of the Italian Institute for the Future, editor of the magazine “Futuri” and co-founder of the Italian Futurists Association. His areas of specialization include the social impact of scientific and technological innovation and megatrend analysis. He holds a degree in International Relations and a Ph.D. in Physics.
Luca Andolfi – Telespazio
Luca Andolfi is an Aerospace Engineer, currently holding the role of System Engineer at Telespazio’s Innovation and Technology Governance department. Graduated at the University of Naples Federico II in 2021, he has always had a strong passion for the space exploration and innovative technologies. Between 2020 and 2021 he took part at the Leonardo’s Aerotech Academy, where he learned innovative concepts in the field of aerospace. In 2020 he won the TTeC#2020 contest, organized by Telespazio, with the MATES group, MArs TElecommunication System, presenting a system orbiting around the Red Planet capable of providing a communication service to future institutional and commercial missions. In 2021 he joined the same company, within which he began a training course as a System Engineer. He was immediately involved in the ambitious “Lunar Communication and Navigation Services” program, within ESA Moonlight initiative, in which Telespazio played the role of Prime of an important consortium of medium and large companies and universities. In 2022 he got the ASEP Certification issued by INCOSE, as a System Engineer.
Francesco Ventre – Confindustria Brescia
Francesco Ventre, is the Innovation Manager of Confindustria Brescia and Technical Director of Innexhub, Brescia’s Digital Innovation Hub. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Naples “Federico II” and a master’s degree in Space Engineering from Politecnico di Milano with a thesis focused on the evolutionary dynamics of asteroid ejecta particles around binary systems, in collaboration with the University of Liverpool.
He also attended the ISU Space Studies Program in 2021 with an ESA scholarship, learning more about space entrepreneurship and developing a cislunar transport project sponsored by Virgin Orbit. Passionate about space entrepreneurship and economy, he is the co-founder (and former CEO) of Walle srl, the first Italian airline for “taxi-drone” vehicles and consultant/advisor for several aerospace startups.
He is member of the SGAC, AIDAA, Women In Aerospace and ECSECO. He is in the Advisory Board of Polispace, the first space association of Politecnico di Milano that he co-founded in 2020 and led for one year. At the end of 2021 he gave also birth to SEDS Italia, the cluster of Italian universities space associations and he is now part of the Board of Directors. He is author and co-author of several conference proceedings. His hobbies include cooking and listening to music.
Gianluca Giuffrida – IngeniArs
Gianluca Giuffrida got bachelor’s degree in computer engineering at the Università degli studi di Catania in 2015 and master’s degree in Embedded Computing System at S. Anna and University of Pisa in 2018. Master’s thesis work was based on an autonomous robotic arm for people with disabilities exploiting machine learning algorithms for object detection.
He completed his PhD in Information Engineering at the University of Pisa where his main research topics cover Artificial Intelligence for satellite embedded systems, hardware-software co-design, Computer Vision and Robotics. Actually, he is working as Business Developer and Advance Applications at IngeniArs S.r.l.