Massimo Ferri's home page

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for the course on Mathematical Methods

My name is Massimo Ferri, and I am a "Professore dell'Alma Mater" at Bologna University. I am a member of the Department of Mathematics and of the Advanced Research Center for Electronic Systems "E. De Castro". I list my scientific and teaching activities, and also my other academic duties. You can also have a look at a complete CV of mine.



What is the only maths you can't ever apply? The one you don't know! (Mario Pezzana)


Scientific activity

Currently, all my scientific activity is devoted to our little research group in Vision Mathematics. In particular, I worked at the VIDET project, to which I had given the starting idea.

I started my research in the topology of manifolds; in more recent years I drifted towards applications of geometry and topology to some aspects of robotics, in particular computer vision. My bibliographic references are available on line. Much of our research activity also goes through the theses we assign.

My Masters are Mario Pezzana and Luigi Cavalieri D'Oro, who have taught me all that I know, and also a lot of other things I've never been able to learn. I used to share drinks, studies, research, journeys, articles with Carlo Gagliardi, now at Modena University, for a long time. Colin Rourke was very important during my year at Warwick University. I dreamed of - never found - invariants together with Sóstenes Lins (at UFPE, Recife, BR) and Louis Kauffman (of the U. of Illinois at Chicago). I am proud to have had a number of Ph. D. students, among which there are two wonderful colleagues: Patrizio Frosini and Michele Mulazzani.

I owe much to the wonderful summer course in Algebraic Topology (Perugia 1972) by Prof. Richard Holzsager: it was a turning point for my studies, for my career and, in the end, for my life.

Teaching activity

In the current academic year I give the following courses:

  • Mathematical Methods (part A) for the 2nd degrees in Electronic and Telecommunications Engineering (a program is available)

  • Complements of Geometry for the 1st an 2nd degree in Mechanical Engineering in Bologna (a program in Italian is available)
  • For several years I gave the following courses:

  • Geometry and Algebra t for the 1st degree in Electric Engineering and Electronic-Telecommunications Engineering in Bologna (a program in Italian is available)

  • Algebraic Topology for the 1st degree in Mathematics (a program in Italian is available)
  • Academic duties

    I was a member of the Scientific Committee of the Italian Mathematical Union for some periods. From May 2003 to May 2009 I was the coordinator of its Committee for Research and Teaching of Mathematics in the Engineering Faculties.

    For the period 2005-2009 I was a member of the scientific committee of the Inter-University Centre for the access to Engineering and Architecture Schools and I was the coordinator of its Thematic Group "Mathematics" from 2006 to 2009.



    (Pages prepared with Hypertext Master 2).