Caorle (Venice), October 3-4, 2025 – The 12th SIRAM National Conference – Italian Society for Applied Research in Shellfish Farming – was held at the Caorle Civic Center, entitled “Shellfish Farming in a One Health Perspective.” The event represented a significant opportunity for national scientific discussion, focusing on the new challenges and opportunities in the sector.
During the conference, Dr. Diana Di Luccio (Department of Science and Technology) presented her work “High Performance Computing (HPC) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) for Food Safety in Mussel Farming” (D. Di Luccio, F. Barchiesi, E. Calandri, F. Leoni, E. Rocchegiani, S. Bacchiocchi, G. Colarusso, M. Della Rotonda, G. Smaldone, M. Esposito, and R. Montella) as a dissemination activity for the MytilEx project (Extended Modeling Mytilus Farming System with High Performance Computing and Artificial Intelligence).
The project, funded by the Prevention and Veterinary Public Health Unit of the Campania Region and developed in collaboration with the National Reference Center for the Microbiological and Chemical Control of Live Bivalve Molluscs (led by Dr. Francesca Barchiesi), is coordinated by Professor Raffaele Montella, director of the High-Performance Scientific Computing Laboratory.
MytilEx aims to predict potential bacterial contamination in bivalve molluscs farmed in Campania, thanks to the integration of advanced high-performance scientific computing techniques and artificial intelligence.
This innovative approach places technology at the service of food safety and public health.
The project, born from research and development activities begun in 2009, is now an operational tool available to the relevant institutions, demonstrating how collaboration between research, public bodies, and technological innovation can generate concrete solutions for consumer protection and the enhancement of the Campania mussel farming sector.
Raffaele Montella is an Associate Professor with tenure in Computer Science at the Department of Science and Technologies (DiST), University of Naples “Parthenope'” (UNP), Italy. He got his degree (MSc equivalent) cum laude and an award mention to his study career in (Marine) Environmental Science at the University of Naples “Parthenope” in 1998, defending a thesis about the “Development of a GIS system for marine applications”.
He defended his Ph.D. thesis on “Environmental modeling and Grid Computing techniques” earning a Ph.D. in Marine Science and Engineering at the University of Naples “Federico II”.
His main research topics and scientific production are focused on: tools for high-performance computing, cloud computing, and GPUs with applications in the field of computational environmental science (multi-dimensional geo-referenced big data, distributed computing for modeling, and scientific workflows and science gateways) leveraging on his previous (and still ongoing) experiences in embedded, mobile, wearable, pervasive computing, and Internet of Things.
He joined the CI/RDCEP of the University of Chicago as Visiting Scholar and Visiting Assistant Professor working on the FACE-IT project.
He leads the High-Performance Scientific Computing (HPSC) Laboratory and the IT infrastructure of the UNP Center for Marine and Atmosphere Monitoring and Modeling (CMMMA).
He technically led the University of Naples “Parthenope” research unit of the European Project “Heterogeneous secure multi-level Remote Acceleration service for low-Power Integrated systems and Devices (RAPID)”. His effort focused on GVirtuS development and integration (General purpose Virtualization Service), enabling CUDA kernel execution on mobile and embedded devices.
He led the locally funded project: “Modeling mytilus farming System with Enhanced web technologies (MytiluSE)” focused on high-performance computing based coupled simulations for mussels’ farms’ food quality prediction and assessment for human gastric disease mitigation.
He leads the locally funded project “MytilAI – Modeling mytilus farming with Artificial Intelligence technologies”, focused on using AI techniques for mussel pollutants contamination predictions.
He leads the research project: “DYNAMO: Distributed leisure Yacht-carried sensor-Network for Atmosphere and Marine data crOwd-sourcing applications”, targeting coastal marine data gathering as crowd-sourcing for environmental protection, development, and management.
He led the UNP unit of the Erasmus+ Project “Framework for Gamified Programming Education (FGPE)” and is leading the UNP unit of the project “FGPE Plus: Learning tools interoperability for gamified programming education” as an ideal extension of FGPE ending in May 2021.
Since 2021 he has been head of the UNP node CINI Lab/Working Group “HPC: Key Technologies and Tools”. Since 2022 he has been the head of the AWS Academy at the University of Naples “Parthenope”.
In February 2023, he gained the Italian National Academic Qualifications as Full Professor in Computer Science (01/B1).
