Invited Keynote
About Citizen Science and the Sea: Beyond the Common Oceanographer
Citizen science has emerged as a valuable paradigm in environmental research, enabling individuals from diverse backgrounds to contribute to scientific endeavors.
We explore the intersection of citizen science and oceanography, highlighting its potential to revolutionize our understanding of the marine environment using data collected automatically by leisure and professional vessels. We discuss the benefits, challenges, and prospects of citizen science in the context of oceanographic research, emphasizing the importance of collaboration between scientists and citizens to address pressing marine issues. Considering the lesson learned from the DYNAMO/Fairwind experience, we illustrate how citizen science has extended the reach of traditional oceanography, providing novel insights and engaging communities in marine conservation, pollution contrasting, and coastal weather forecast and prediction efforts.
In this context, we share our experience with the framework we developed, intending to integrate citizen science into mainstream oceanographic research, focusing on harnessing its full potential for addressing critical environmental challenges.
Professor Raffaele Montella
Department of Science and Technologies, University of Naples “Partenope”
Director of the High Performance Computing Smart Laboratory
Bio
Raffaele Montella is an Associate Professor with tenure in Computer Science at the Department of Science and Technologies (DiST), University of Naples “Parthenope” (UNP), Italy. He got his degree (MSc equivalent) {cum laude} and an award mention to his study career in (Marine) Environmental Science at the University of Naples “Parthenope” in 1998, defending a thesis about the “Development of a GIS system for marine applications”. He defended his Ph.D. thesis on “Environmental modeling and Grid Computing techniques” earning a Ph.D. in Marine Science and Engineering at the University of Naples “Federico II”.
His main research topics and scientific production are focused on: tools for high-performance computing, cloud computing, and GPUs with applications in the field of computational environmental science (multi-dimensional geo-referenced big data, distributed computing for modeling, and scientific workflows and science gateways) leveraging on his previous (and still ongoing) experiences in embedded, mobile, wearable, pervasive computing, and Internet of Things.
He joined the CI/RDCEP of the University of Chicago as Visiting Scholar and Visiting Assistant Professor working on the FACE-IT project.
He leads the High-Performance Scientific Computing (HPSC) Laboratory and the IT infrastructure of the UNP Center for Marine and Atmosphere Monitoring and Modeling (CMMMA).
He technically led the University of Naples “Parthenope” research unit of the European Project “Heterogeneous secure multi-level Remote Acceleration service for low-Power Integrated systems and Devices (RAPID)”. His effort focused on GVirtuS development and integration (General purpose Virtualization Service), enabling CUDA kernel execution on mobile and embedded devices.
He led the locally funded project: “Modeling mytilus farming System with Enhanced web technologies (MytiluSE)” focused on high-performance computing based coupled simulations for mussels’ farms’ food quality prediction and assessment for human gastric disease mitigation.
He leads the locally funded project “MytilAI – Modeling mytilus farming with Artificial Intelligence technologies,” which focuses on using AI techniques for mussel pollutants contamination predictions.
He leads the research project: “DYNAMO: Distributed leisure Yacht-carried sensor-Network for Atmosphere and Marine data crOwd-sourcing applications” targeting the coastal marine data gathering as crowd-sourcing for environmental protection, development, and management.
He led the UNP unit of the Erasmus+ Projects “Framework for Gamified Programming Education (FGPE)” and “FGPE Plus: Learning tools interoperability for gamified programming education” and he will lead the Erasmus+ “FGPE Plus Plus” an ideal extension of the previous FGPE projects.
Since 2011, he has been the founder and the curator of the Museum of Computational Architectures (MArC) at the University of Naples “Parthenope”.
Since 2021 he has been head of the UNP node CINI Lab/Working Group “HPC: Key Technologies and Tools”. Since 2022 he has been the head of the AWS Academy at the University of Naples “Parthenope”.
In May 2019, he gained the Italian National Academic Qualifications as Associate Professor in Computer Science (01/B1).
In February 2023, he gained the Italian National Academic Qualifications as Full Professor in Computer Science (01/B1).
Website: https://raffaelemontella.it