Erasmus: Fabio Berberi – Ciao, science!

Fabio Berberi arrived at Leuphana with many aspirations. But returning to Italy as a scientist – that was something he hadn’t anticipated: the 25-year-old is studying industrial engineering at the University of Siena. He was keen to spend his semester abroad in Germany: “German engineers are highly regarded worldwide,” he says.

The deciding factors for him were both Leuphana’s good reputation and the campus’s distinctive architecture. He is particularly fascinated by the central building designed by Daniel Libeskind: “It’s an exciting place that immediately sparked my curiosity,” says Fabio Berberi.

But he also broke new ground in his studies, taking courses in complementary subjects. In the seminar led by Prof. Dr Paolo Mercorelli, Professor of Control and Drive Systems, he explored intelligent algorithms, signal processing and industrial applications. Fabio Berberi made a strong impression with his ideas: “We received a great deal of support from Professor Mercorelli. But I hadn’t expected my results to be good enough for a conference paper.”

The student solved a common problem in data processing. To do so, he further developed an algorithm: instead of trying out countless possibilities in large datasets one by one, his method searches specifically within promising areas. This saves computing time and energy. The paper describes this method, whereby a neural network automatically identifies which input data is particularly important for its predictions. This means good results can be achieved more quickly without the network’s accuracy suffering significantly.

“I’d never published anything before,” says Fabio Berberi. Together with Paolo Mercorelli, he drafted the conference paper – and made a convincing case. “I then presented our data at a conference in Krakow. I was very nervous, but in the end everything went well.” A major milestone followed when Fabio Berberi and Paolo Mercorelli received the “Best Paper Award” for their scientific achievement at a conference in Surat, India.

Fabio Berberi has since published his second paper with Professor Mercorelli and has almost completed his bachelor’s degree. He plans to start his Master’s degree next semester: “The publication and the methodological knowledge gained from it will be a great help to me,” says Fabio Berberi. His collaboration with Paolo Mercorelli continues to this day. They are currently working on further projects, including in cooperation with Volkswagen. Fabio Berberi also maintains the website fabioberberi.com, where he documents his academic activities, research projects, publications, and ongoing work.

Instead of the originally planned six months, Fabio Berberi ended up staying at Leuphana for nine months. Although he spoke hardly any German, he quickly found his feet. “The professors were very flexible. I was able to complete many of my coursework in English, which helped me a great deal,” he reports. The International Center and his flatmates also made his transition easier: “I made friends quickly and had a great time in Lüneburg. Sometimes everything just falls into place.”