ECS

Photo: Dr Paolo Rapisarda Dr Paolo Rapisarda joined the Information: Signals, Images, Systems (ISIS) Research Group in October 2005.

As a teenager, Dr Paolo Rapisarda was very drawn to classical studies and languages and enjoys computer science today because of its own distinctive language.

During his secondary school education in Italy, he studied classical studies and philosophy and was very influenced by his father who was a Latin philologist who devoted much of his time to deciding on the origin of manuscripts.

Paolo opted to go on to study computer science because he felt it held more career opportunities than linguistics and is pleased that he made that choice.

‘Classical studies improved the clarity of my thinking and prepared me for computer science and mathematics, which are very logical disciplines and have their own language,’ he said.

After doing his degree in Computer Science at the University of Udine in Italy, he went on to do a PhD in Systems and Control Theory in the Mathematics Department of the University of Groningen in The Netherlands.

During his studies, he became interested in the modeling of physical systems and theoretical engineering and the possibility of abstracting the essential features of physical systems and using them to study other systems.

He became particularly interested in how the principle of dissipativity, whereby systems dissipate energy for example in the form of heat, could be used to study other properties.

Paolo went on to work as a Software Engineer at the Advanced Research and Development Division of LABEN, part of the largest aerospace group in Italy, where he wrote the prototype for the operating system for the Cluster mission using novel programming languages and software engineering specifically tuned to build and engineer larger systems. Later on in his career, while working at the Delft unit of Hollandse Signaalapparaten BV, he studied from a mathematical point of view the feasibility of using irregular radar pulses in military applications.

‘If radar pulses are regular, the enemy can read your frequency and use that information in order to burn your connections,’ he said. ‘This realisation led me to look at the possibility of using irregular pulses.’

After spending 12 years working in mathematics departments, Paolo decided that it was time for a new challenge and joined the University of Southampton’s School of Electronics & Computer Science (ECS) in 2006.

‘Maths is in bad shape for various reasons and there is a lot of navel gazing,’ he said. When I was offered a place at ECS, I saw it as a return to engineering and I took it gladly.’

Paolo is currently working on theoretical engineering and is applying mathematical solutions to basic problems in engineering. He is modeling systems from data, an approach which he believes is becoming increasingly important.

‘Nowadays, increasingly large systems such as power stations and airplanes are to be engineered, and I see modeling from data as the way forward,’ he said.