Jacopo Massa, PhD

Research Fellow Department of Computer Science, University of Pisa

Hi! 👋🏼 I am a Research Fellow in Computer Science at the University of Pisa, for the NOUS European project. My research primarily focuses on declarative approaches for multi-service applications and network management, emphasising data-awareness and simulation-emulation of the Cloud-Edge continuum.

To this end, I am one of the main authors and maintainers of ECLYPSE, a Python framework for the simulation and emulation of Cloud-Edge environments. I am actively involved in the academic community, serving as a Program Committee member and reviewer for various international conferences and journals.

Experience

Research grant

University of Pisa • Pisa, Italy

09/2024 - now

Scholarship Holder

University of Pisa • Pisa, Italy

11/2021 - 09/2024

Education

Ph.D. in Computer Science

University of Pisa / CNR-ISTI

Thesis

11/2021 - 11/2025

This thesis investigates declarative methodologies for managing applications and networks across the Cloud-Edge continuum, focusing on data-aware placement and intent-based networking. The work introduces models and prototypes that enable automated, context-sensitive distributed service deployment, based on data properties and infrastructure dynamics. It also proposes novel approaches for intent modelling, translation, and conflict resolution to support scalable orchestration of application and network configurations. The solutions are validated through simulation, emulation, and real-world case studies.

M.Sc. in Computer Science

University of Pisa

Thesis

10/2019 - 10/2021

This thesis proposes declarative modelling of Cloud-IoT infrastructures and multi-service applications that separately model computing and data services. Through formal logic reasoning, the methodology determines eligible service placements and data traffic routing over Cloud-IoT resources. The proposed methodology is prototyped in Prolog and assessed via simulation over a life-like use case.

B.Sc. in Computer Science

University of Pisa

09/2016 - 10/2019

This thesis presents the design and implementation of a hybrid voice-graphical interface for smart building environments, enabling natural language interaction with IoT devices through Amazon Alexa and a touchscreen display. The system integrates multiple microservices within the GIÒ framework, allowing users to access contextual information, manage smart room goals, and control devices via voice commands or graphical input. The solution is prototyped using Python and the Alexa Skills Kit, and its usability is evaluated through real-user testing in a university setting.

Research interests

My current research interests include, but are not limited to, what follows:

cloud-edge continuumdistributed systemsdeclarative programmingintent-based networkingsoftware-defined networkingsimulationemulation

Publications

Please find below a comprehensive list of my publications, following the DBLP colour scheme.

Indexed publications are also listed on: DBLP , Google Scholar , ResearchGate , Scopus , Web of Science .

Source	Documents	Citations	h-index	i10-index
Google Scholar	Documents 24	Citations 118	h-index 7	i10-index 6
ResearchGate	Documents 24	Citations 101	h-index 6	i10-index —
Scopus	Documents 19	Citations 80	h-index 5	i10-index —
Web of Science	Documents 17	Citations 53	h-index 4	i10-index —

Research

ECLYPSE

Edge-CLoud pYthon Platform for Simulated runtime Environments

GitHub

11/2024

Python

ECLYPSE (Edge-CLoud pYthon Platform for Simulated runtime Environments) is a simulation library entirely written in Python for experimenting with deployment strategies under varying infrastructure conditions. It provides an interface to simulate deployments of service-based applications onto realistic infrastructures, both with and without an actual application implementation. It was also used in the European FREEDA project.

CoReRoute

Continuous Routing Repair in Software-Defined Networks

GitHub

09/2026

Prolog Python

CoReRoute is a Python and Prolog framework for continuous routing repair in Software-Defined Networks. Through continuous reasoning, it identifies and reroutes flows that no longer meet bandwidth and latency requirements, while preserving valid routes. It combines a declarative model with heuristic strategies to limit recomputation and changes to the routing configuration.

SL-CR

Continuous Reasoning Prototype for Application Placement

GitHub

06/2026

Prolog

SL-CR is a declarative prototype for continuous reasoning over application placement in Cloud-Edge environments. It separates a deployment into valid and invalid fragments, preserves valid assignments, and repairs only affected components through Prolog-based reasoning, reducing unnecessary recomputation and migrations after application or infrastructure changes.

EdgeWiseCR

Declarative and Optimization-based Edge-Cloud Service Placer

GitHub

07/2025

Prolog Python

EdgeWiseCR is a data-aware framework for placing multi-service applications in Cloud-Edge environments, combining declarative reasoning and MILP optimisation to minimise operational costs and data transfers. It extends EdgeWise with continuous reasoning, reusing existing placements to reduce recomputation and service migrations while preserving placement stability under dynamic infrastructure conditions.

dgLBF

Declarative Guaranteed Latency Based Forwarding

GitHub

06/2024

Prolog

The guaranteed Latency Based Forwarding (gLBF) approach features per-hop bounded delays to meet end-to-end latency requirements of data flows based on application needs. dgLBF introduces a Prolog-based specification of gLBF for path selection and delay configuration. The prototype determines paths and delays to meet latency targets, offering a concise and extensible solution.

MultiDIPS

Multi-Intent Declarative Intent-based Provisioning System

GitHub

10/2023

Prolog

MultiDIPS is a Prolog tool that extends DIPS to model and process multiple VNF-based service provisioning intents. It enables providers to specify high-level requirements such as service type, location constraints (e.g., edge deployment), Quality of Service (latency, bandwidth), and non-functional properties like privacy or logging. MultiDIPS leverages Prolog inference to translate multiple intents into consistent provisioning specifications.

EdgeWise

Declarative and Optimization-based Edge-Cloud Service Placer

GitHub

09/2023

Prolog Python

EdgeWise shows a declarative programming approach combined with a Mixed-Integer Linear Programming (MILP) formulation to identify eligible placements that minimise operational costs and reduce the number of nodes involved, limiting data transfers. After evaluating both approaches, EdgeWise reconciles them through a hybrid methodology that leverages declarative pre-processing to accelerate the MILP solver while computing optimal solutions.

DIPS

Declarative Intent-based Provisioning System

GitHub

07/2023

Prolog

DIPS (Declarative Intent Provisioning System) is a Prolog tool that uses a declarative methodology for modelling and processing VNF-based service provisioning intents. It enables providers to specify high-level requirements such as service type, edge placement constraints, Quality of Service (latency, bandwidth), and non-functional properties like privacy or logging. DIPS leverages Prolog inference to translate intents into provisioning specifications.

DA-Placer

Data-Aware Application Placer for Edge-Cloud Environments

GitHub

12/2022

Prolog

DA-Placer proposes a declarative solution that accounts for both functional and non-functional aspects to determine service placements and SDN data routings that satisfy application requirements. The solution leverages a Prolog reasoner and continuous reasoning to speed up placement and routing decisions at runtime.

GiòSkill

Conversational Interfaces for Ambient Intelligence Services

GitHub

06/2019 - 12/2025

Python

GiòMap

Interactive Map and Indoor Navigation Service

GitHub

06/2019 - 12/2025

Python JavaScript

A catalyst for EuropeaN ClOUd Services thumbnail

NOUS: A catalyst for EuropeaN ClOUd Services

09/2024

Pisa, Italy

OSMWARE: hOlistic Sustainable Management of distributed softWARE systems

11/2022 - 12/2024

Pisa, Italy

High Performance Computing Laboratory thumbnail

HPC-Lab: High Performance Computing Laboratory

01/2022

The HPC Lab focuses on scalable algorithms and systems for computational and data-intensive problems, including cloud systems, big data analytics, and machine learning. They develop efficient solutions for managing large datasets in near real-time, optimizing for resource constraints and application-specific trade-offs.

Pisa, Italy

Service-Oriented, Cloud and Fog Computing Research Group thumbnail

SOCC: Service-Oriented, Cloud and Fog Computing Research Group

05/2021

Pisa, Italy

A Fog Computing Testbed for Research & Education thumbnail

GIÒ: A Fog Computing Testbed for Research & Education

06/2019

Pisa, Italy

Forthcoming Events
ACR 2027	5^th International Conference on Advances in Computing Research	Dublin, Ireland, 12-14 July 2027	PC member
AHPC³ 2027	4^th Workshop on Accelerated HPC in the Cloud Edge Continuum @ PDP 2027	Barcelona, Spain, 17-19 March 2027	PC chair
ICIN 2027	30^th Conference on Innovation in Clouds, Internet and Networks	Pisa, Italy, 15-18 March 2027	PC member
CLOUD COMPUTING 2027	18^th International Conference on Services, Tools, and Architectures for Cloud Computing	Barcelona, Spain, 7-11 March 2027	PC member
IEEE CCNC 2027	24^th IEEE Consumer Communications & Networking Conference	Las Vegas, NV, USA, 9-12 January 2027	PC member
IEEE SmartCity 2026	24^th IEEE International Conference on Smart City	Luoyang, Henan, China, 29 October-2 November 2026	PC member
ASCIC 2026	1^st African Smart Cities & Innovation Congress	Laâyoune, Morocco, 27-29 October 2026	PC member

Past Events
2026	AHPC³ 2026 @ PDP 2026 (PC chair) , I3E 2026 (PC member) , GECON 2026 (PC member, local chair, web chair) , ESOCC 2026 (PC member) , BigHPC 2026 @ Euro-Par 2026 (PC member, web chair) , SSDBM 2026 (PC member) , IEEE SOSE 2026 (PC member) , CSC 2026 (PC member) , HPDC 2026 (PC member) , ACR 2026 (PC member) , MoCS 2026 @ IEEE ISCC 2026 (PC member) , CLOUD COMPUTING 2026 (PC member) , IEEE CCNC 2026 (PC member)
2025	AHPC³ 2025 @ IC2E 2025 (PC chair) , AHPC³ 2024 @ PDP 2025 (PC chair) , I3E 2025 (PC member) , IEEE SmartCity 2025 (PC member) , CSC 2025 (PC member) , IEEE SOSE 2025 (PC member) , ACR 2025 (PC member) , MoCS 2025 @ IEEE ISCC 2025 (PC member) , CauSE 2025 (PC member) , Cloud Continuum @ SAC 2025 (PC member) , CLOSER 2025 (PC member) , ESOCC 2025 (PC member)
2024	CSC 2024 (PC member) , IEEE SOSE 2024 (PC member) , HPDC 2024 (web chair)
2023	Microservices 2023 (PC member) , ACSOS 2023 (PC member) , ESOCC 2023 (PC member)

Editor
IJNDC	International Journal on Networked and Distributed Computing	07/2026

Junior Editor
IJNDC	International Journal on Networked and Distributed Computing	10/2025 - 07/2026

Teaching

Ongoing

Antonio Napolitano · Observing Emergent Behavior in Agentic AI

09/2026 - ongoing

Supervisors: Patrizio Dazzi, Jacopo Massa, Alessandro Berti

University of Pisa | Computer Science

The thesis develops and evaluates "emersight" , a tool for observing AI agents that communicate, use tools and share memory. It records actions and memory accesses, reconstructs their relationships, and tests how these traces support interaction reconstruction and diagnosis in controlled delegation and shared-state experiments across LangGraph and AG2.
Dieudonne Iyabivuze · Personalized Model Poisoning Attacks in Decentralized Federated Learning

09/2026 - ongoing

Supervisors: Stefano Chessa, Patrizio Dazzi, Jacopo Massa

University of Pisa | Computer Science

The thesis evaluates BALANCE, a similarity-based defence for decentralised federated learning, against personalised and non-personalised poisoning. It compares how the defence handles malicious model updates when an attacker sends the same poisoned parameters to every neighbour or tailors a different update to each one.
Gabriele Denti · Data-aware scheduling in Kubernetes

12/2025 - ongoing

Supervisors: Jacopo Massa, Stefano Forti, Patrizio Dazzi, Antonio Brogi

University of Pisa | Computer Science

The thesis integrates DA-Placer as a scheduler/controller for Kubernetes to make workload placement aware of data characteristics exchanged across the network. It evaluates the resulting controller against Kubernetes' standard scheduler, assessing whether data-aware decisions improve the performance and efficiency of distributed applications.
Davide Orsucci · ECLYPSE-NET: Extending Cloud-Edge Simulation with Network Modeling

12/2025 - ongoing

Supervisors: Jacopo Massa, Stefano Forti, Patrizio Dazzi, Antonio Brogi

University of Pisa | Computer Science

The thesis extends the ECLYPSE simulator to include an advanced network model, enabling the modelling of more realistic and complex Cloud-Edge scenarios and improving the analysis of the performance and efficiency of distributed applications.

Ongoing

Niccolò Baicchi · LLM per la traduzione neuro-simbolica di intenti in Prolog

03/2026 - ongoing

Supervisors: Stefano Forti, Jacopo Massa, Federica Paganelli

University of Pisa | Computer Science

The thesis explores the use of large language models (LLMs) for the neuro-symbolic translation of intents into Prolog, with the aim of improving the interaction between users and intelligent systems.

Completed

Leonardo Signore · Continuous Routing Repair in Software-Defined Networks

03/2026 - 10/2026

Supervisors: Stefano Forti, Jacopo Massa, Giulia Punzi

University of Pisa | Computer Science

GitHub

The thesis proposes an adaptive approach to network flow management, using continuous reasoning to optimise performance and ensure quality of service.
Giuseppe Acocella · PeerMoA: Mixture-of-Agents a Microservizi e Confronto tra Scheduling Push e Pull

02/2026 - 10/2026

Supervisors: Saul Urso, Jacopo Massa, Patrizio Dazzi

University of Pisa | Computer Science

GitHub

The thesis proposes a distributed approach to the management of Mixture-of-Agents systems, with the aim of improving the efficiency and scalability of distributed applications.
Alessandro Mariani · Traffico di rete a latenza garantita: un approccio dichiarativo e sostenibile

07/2025 - 12/2025

Supervisors: Antonio Brogi, Patrizio Dazzi, Stefano Forti, Jacopo Massa, Federica Paganelli

University of Pisa | Computer Science

GitHub

The thesis extends the dgLBF framework with carbon- and cost-awareness to select network paths under strict latency constraints, minimising emissions and energy costs through an energy model of routers and lexicographic optimisation, with experimental results showing 2-3% reductions and optimality guarantees via branch-and-bound.
Andrea Caggiani · Valutazione sperimentale di un approccio per il leasing di infrastrutture Cloud-Edge

05/2025 - 10/2025

Supervisors: Stefano Forti, Antonio Brogi, Jacopo Massa

University of Pisa | Computer Science

The work proposes a framework for resource leasing on Cloud-Edge infrastructures, integrating FogCutter and ECLYPSE to optimize infrastructure configuration and simplify user-provider interaction.
Tommaso Di Riccio · Intent-based networking e piazzamento sostenibile di catene VNF

06/2025 - 10/2023

Supervisors: Antonio Brogi, Stefano Forti, Jacopo Massa

University of Pisa | Computer Science

GitHub

The project's aim is to study prototypes and technologies to enable holistic and sustainable management of next-generation distributed software applications, also considering the economic impact.

Contacts

Contact info

(+39) 050 2212731

Microsoft Teams

Largo Bruno Pontecorvo 3, Pisa, PI 56127

Dept. of Computer Science, Building C - Floor 2, Room 385

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Jacopo Massa, PhD

Experience

Research grant

Scholarship Holder

Education

Ph.D. in Computer Science

M.Sc. in Computer Science

B.Sc. in Computer Science

Research interests

Publications

Research

Teaching

Ongoing

Ongoing

Completed

Contacts

Contact info

External profiles