Biography

Riccardo Di Clemente is Director of the Complex Connection Lab an Associate Professor at Northeastern University London, Core Faculty at Network Science Institute, Northeastern University, Affiliated Researcher at ISI Foundation and Visiting Professor at Sony Computer Science Lab Paris.

Riccardo obtained his undergraduate B.Sc. & M.Sc. degrees in physics at Sapienza University of Rome. He received his Ph.D. Europaeus in Economics (at IMTLucca, Italy with visiting Institution Institute of New Economic Thinking at University of Oxford - INET@Oxford) where he applied Complex Systems tools to Economics and Social system. Afterward, he completed his postdoctoral research at the Institute of Complex Systems in Rome and then at the department of Civil and Environmental Engineering department of Massachusetts Institute of Technology - MIT in Boston. He has been awarded the Newton International Fellowship of the Royal Society in applied mathematics, he was hosted by the Centre for Advance Spatial Analysis (CASA) at University College London UCL. Before joining Northeastern University London, Riccardo was a lecturer in Data Science at the Computer Science Department of the University of Exeter, where he became Alan Turing Fellow of The Alan Turing Institute for two years working on new data analytics tools for Urban Dynamics.

Riccardo has been a consultant for the World Bank, he led projects in collaboration with companies and ONG (Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and Data2x) to develop fine-tuned data-driven solutions for policymaking in developing countries.

Riccardo is leading a multidisciplinary research group at Complex Connection Lab at Northeastern University. Riccardo's team develops innovative mathematical frameworks to analyze and model the complex social connections that govern human behavior and interactions within cities and online. Riccardo's research utilizes network theory, complex systems computational social science, and machine learning methods to investigate the digital footprints left by individuals in their daily routines.

Riccardo's research questions are built in close relationships with data providers and institutions. Using mobile phone data we decoupled the changes in human mobility across the UK during the Covid-19 health crisis; provided data-driven approaches for spatial planning, poverty reduction, and disaster resilience in developing countries such as Nigeria and Mexico. Leveraging Credit Card Data we identify socio-economic lifestyles within cities in developing countries and define gender economic and spatial routines in cities.

Currently, Riccardo's Lab is developing new Complex Systems and Machine Learning models to capture digital human traces to understand urban segregation. Additionally, they are studying the structure of social network conversations, to observe how major events affect society, conversation patterns, and users' interactions with respect to unperturbed discussion patterns.

Contacts