about Massimo and Carlo
The friendship between Massimo Ferri and Carlo Gagliardi dates back to the High School days. They started doing mathematics together, under the supervision of Mario Pezzana, who introduced them to the topological world of crystallizations. They wrote several joint papers and even when their professional careers took different directions, they still continued to share dreams, journeys and drinks. They are both renowned for the exponential growth of their scientific projects and mathematical dreams.
more about Massimo
Massimo was born on June 30th, 1950. After his graduation at the University of Modena (1973), Massimo Ferri started his research studying the topology of piecewise-linear manifolds under the supervision of Mario Pezzana, focusing on the concepts of “contracted triangulation” and “crystallization” and on the relations between groups and graphs. In 1977 Massimo obtained his Master of Science in Mathematics at the University of Warwick, under the supervision of Colin Rourke.
As a keen upholder of the strong links between theory and practice (''What is the only maths you can't ever apply? The one you don't know!'' - Mario Pezzana), in more recent years he has drifted towards geometrical and topological applications of some aspects of robotics. In particular he has studied methods for computer vision: projective geometry for pose estimation of objects, differential geometry for robot navigation, size theory for shape recognition.
In 1981 Massimo became Full Professor of Geometry at the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Naples. From 1984 he has moved to the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Bologna. He is also a member of the Department of Mathematics (where he leads the research group in Vision Mathematics), of the C.I.R.A.M.-Research Centre of Applied Mathematics and of the Advanced Research Center for Electronic Systems “E. De Castro”.
He has been a member of the Scientific Committee of the Italian Mathematical Union, and the coordinator of its Committee for Research and Teaching of Mathematics in the Engineering Faculties. He has also been a member of the scientific committee of the Inter-University Centre for the access to Engineering and Architecture Schools and the coordinator of its Thematic Group ''Mathematics''.
more about Carlo
Carlo Gagliardi was born in Nizza Monferrato on June 4th, 1950. He began his scientific activity at the University of Modena, where in 1973 he graduated in Mathematics with Mario Pezzana as supervisor of his dissertation. After his graduation he continued to work with Mario Pezzana, who was developing at that time his theory of crystallizations as a combinatorial tool to represent PL n-manifolds.
Carlo Gagliardi's work has given a decisive contribution to the progress of crystallization theory, yielding significant results about recognition and classification of PL n-manifolds, with particular regard to low-dimensional ones.
In 1981 Carlo Gagliardi became Full Professor of Geometry at the Engineering Faculty of the University of Naples. In 1983 he moved to the University of Ferrara (Faculty of Science) and finally to the Faculty of Science of the University of Modena in 1987.
From 1994 to 2000 he was Dean of Studies in Mathematics, at the University of Modena and from 1988 to 2000 he was a member of the Scientific Board of the Joint Program of Doctoral Studies in Mathematics of the Universities of Florence, Modena, Perugia, Cagliari and Siena.
