Speaker: Massilmiliano Pittore

Massimiliano Pittore

Massimiliano Pittore is a senior research scientist at the GFZ. He is a physicist with a PhD in Informatics. His expertise and research interests range from image processing and data mining to earthquake engineering, (mostly seismic) risk assessment and design of early warning and rapid response systems. His research line focuses on devising consistent approaches to seismic risk assessment on a multi-scale spatial perspective and with multiple data/information sources. He is currently involved in several projects dealing with seismic risk (Global Earthquake Model – GEM), multi-risk (MATRIX, DESERVE), seismic vulnerability (Earth in PROGRESS) and remote sensing (SENSUM), and Early Warning (REAKT), in Europe and in Central Asia. He is also coordinator of the EU-funded FP7 project SENSUM.

His research line focus is on devising consistent approaches to seismic risk assessment on a multi-scale spatial perspective and with multiple data/information sources. Main investigated information sources are satellite-based imagery, ground-based panoramic imagery and expert knowledge. Specific applications include reliable exposure/vulnerability assessment using multi-source imaging, and information integration with uncertainties propagation using statistical inference. An easily-deployable high-troughput panoramic imaging system for rapid exposure/vulnerability assessment is under development and testing with several end-users and partners in Germany, Turkey and Central Asia.

Scientific interests:

Seismic Risk, Exposure and Vulnerability, Computer Vision and Image Processing, Remote Sensing, statistical learning and data mining, Bayesian Networks, Geo-statistics.