Federico Fontana is Associate professor in the Department of Mathematics, Computer Science and Physics of the University of Udine since 2014, teaching Auditory-tactile interactions and Computer architectures. He coordinates the program committee ("Collegio dei docenti") of the PhD in Computer science and Artificial intelligence in the same university for the period 2020-24. He is Research Associate at the Institute for Computer Music and Sound Technology, Zurich University of the Arts for the period 2023-25.
He graduated in 1996 in Electronic Engineering at the University of Padua, with a thesis that was published in the same year in an international journal. After a period spent in Barcelona, working in the acoustic and vibration measurement field, in 1998 he has obtained a grant from the University of Padua, funded by STMicroelectronics. In 1999 and 2000 he has researched at the Centro di Sonologia Computazionale in the University of Padua, meanwhile developing real-time software applications for GeneralMusic, Consorzio Venezia Ricerche (Venice), and STMicroeletronics for which he is inventor of a European and a US Patent.
In 2001 he has been visiting scholar at Aalto University Espoo, Finland. In 2003 he has received the PhD in computer science from the University of Verona, where he has worked for two years as a post-doc and, from 2005 to 2009, as an assistant professor teaching sound processing, non visual interaction and object-oriented programming. In summer 2016 he has been Visiting researcher at the Institute for Computer Music and Sound Technology, Zurich University of the Arts in Switzerland.
He has coordinated the EU project 222107 NIW - Natural Interactive Walking (2008-2011), in the ICT-2007.8.0 FET-Open research area; the industrial project E-PHASE - Electronic piano with Haptic And Spatial Enhancements (2008-2011), involving the University of Verona and Viscount International SpA, that has led to Physis Piano, the first European physically-based digital piano, on the market since December 2012 and covered by international patent; the first year of the cultural project REVIVAL - REstoration of the Vicentini archive In Verona and its accessibility as an Audio e-Library (2008-2011), involving the University of Verona and Arena di Verona Foundation. He has been local coordinator of the EU Project FP6-NEST-29085 CLOSED - Closing the Loop of Sound Evaluation and Design (2006-2009), research team member in the EU Project IST 2000-25287 SOb - The Sounding Object, and research consultant for the EU Projects IST 2001-37117 RACINE-S and IST-2-511316-IP RACINE-IP.
Since 2022 he is Senior Area Editor of the IEEE/ACM Transactions on Audio, Speech and Language Processing. Since 2021 he is Associate Editor of the IEEE Signal Processing Letters. He has been Associate Editor of the IEEE/ACM Transactions on Audio, Speech and Language Processing since 2017 to 2020. He is co-chair of the 26th International Conference on Digital Audio Effects (Copenaghen, 2023). He has been general chair of the 22nd Colloquium on Music Informatics (Udine, 2018). He published more than 100 publications and is co-inventor in one national and two international patents. He is regularly invited to international conference committees.
He teaches Computer architectures and Auditory and tactile interactions. His current interests are in interactive sound processing, and in the design and evaluation of audio-tactile interfaces particularly for performing music. H-index=28 (14 since 2018) from Google Scholar. Complete cv at https://people.uniud.it/page/federico.fontana
Exchanges with ICST:
Federico Fontana has started to regularly visit ICST since 2014, when Dr. Stefano Papetti and, later, Dr. Hanna Järveläinen became Research Assistant at ZHdK. Previous research collaborations with both were strengthened thanks to the SNSF projects AHMI and HAPTEEV, coordinated by ICST, and through prof Fontana's International Short Visit IZK0Z2_171102 entitled "Enduring international leadership of ZHdK in Musical Haptics", held in Summer 2016. These collaborations resulted in several peer-reviewed journal and conference publications, as well as in visits to the ZHdK of PhD students working at the University of Udine, including one three-month internship by Dr. Yuri De Pra.