PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Fabrizio Sebastiani

Fabrizio Sebastiani is a researcher in information retrieval and machine learning whose work includes text classification and opinion mining. He received a summa cum laude Laurea in Computer Science from the University of Pisa in April 1986 and coauthored an ECAI paper on technical text in 1986. His 2002 survey reviewed machine-learning approaches to automated text categorization, and he served as an associate professor at Padova from 2005 to 2006. In 2016, he held research posts at QCRI and ISTI-CNR and co-chaired SIGIR in Pisa; he chaired ECIR in 2021 and coauthored a 2025 ISTI Day poster on model selection under prior probability shift. As of October 2026, he is a Research Director in ISTI-CNR's Artificial Intelligence for Media and Humanities group.

Now at
Institute of Information Science and Technologies, National Research Council of Italy
Born
1960

Years link to their sources.

Timeline

  1. April 1986

    A Pisa computer science degree

    In April 1986, he receives a Laurea degree in Computer Science, summa cum laude, from the Department of Computer Science at the University of Pisa.

  2. 1986

    Semantic interpretation of technical text

    In 1986, he coauthors “Semantic interpretation of technical text” with Giacomo Ferrari and Irina Prodanof for ECAI-86.

  3. 2002

    A text categorization survey

    In 2002, he publishes “Machine learning in automated text categorization” in ACM Computing Surveys. The survey reviews machine-learning approaches to text categorization and discusses document representation, classifier construction and evaluation.

  4. 2005–2006

    Associate professor at Padova

    From 2005 to 2006, he serves as an Associate Professor in the Department of Pure and Applied Mathematics at the University of Padova.

  5. 2016

    Research posts and SIGIR co-chair

    In 2016, he is a Principal Scientist at Qatar Computing Research Institute and a Senior Research Scientist at ISTI-CNR. He serves as General Co-Chair of the ACM SIGIR Conference in Pisa with Raffaele Perego. His research interests include information retrieval, machine learning and human language technology, with particular emphasis on text classification and opinion mining.

  6. 2021

    ECIR general chair

    In 2021, he serves as General Chairman of ECIR.

  7. 2025

    A model-selection poster

    At the 2025 ISTI Day poster session, he coauthors “Cherry-picking made Legal: Transductive Model Selection under Prior Probability Shift” with Lorenzo Volpi and Alejandro Moreo.

  8. As of October 2026

    Research director at ISTI-CNR

    As of October 2026, he is a Research Director in ISTI-CNR's Artificial Intelligence for Media and Humanities (AIMH) group.

Career

  1. NowInstitute of Information Science and Technologies, National Research Council of ItalySenior Research Scientist
  2. 2005–2006University of PaduaAssociate Professor
  3. Qatar Computing Research InstitutePrincipal Scientist

From the biography.

  1. The United States employs an estimated 48% of people shaping AIIncludes National Research Council. We estimate where the people shaping AI work today, how universities, companies and research institutes split across countries, and how country shares have changed since the 1960s.
  2. The company share of AI researchers’ top papers was 31% in 2020–2024 and 8% in 1970–1974Includes National Research Council. We estimate where the people shaping AI worked when their most-cited papers appeared: the company share was 31% in 2020–2024 and 8% in 1970–1974, and Google led all organizations in 2020–2024.
  3. Google has the highest combined h-index among AI organizationsIncludes National Research Council. We estimate that Google holds the highest combined h-index at 8,016, while universities account for 73% of the deduplicated total across AI organizations.
  4. Universities keep AI researchers for a median of 6 years, compared with 2 years at frontier labsIncludes National Research Council. Across 15,811 dated work stays (6,529 people), median role tenure runs from 6 years at universities to 2 years at frontier labs. We compare all five organization types, starting decades from the 1970s to the 2020s, and the organizations that keep people longest.

Colleagues

People with dated positions at the same organization in the same years.

Sources and credits

Photo: We have no published photo of Fabrizio Sebastiani yet. Send us a free-licensed photo.

  1. Fabrizio Sebastiani: Professional History nmis.isti.cnr.it. Checked 22 October 2026.
  2. Fabrizio Sebastiani: Publications users.softlab.ntua.gr. Checked 22 October 2026.
  3. [cs/0110053] Machine Learning in Automated Text Categorization arxiv.org. Checked 22 October 2026.
  4. Invited Speakers – Summer school digital humanities summerschooldigitalhumanities.unimore.it. Checked 22 October 2026.
  5. ISTI-CNR - Featured ACM Member: Fabrizio Sebastiani isti.cnr.it. Checked 22 October 2026.
  6. List of SIGIR Locations and History | SIGIR sigir.org. Checked 22 October 2026.
  7. ISTI-CNR - ISTI Day 2025 isti.cnr.it. Checked 22 October 2026.
  8. ISTI-CNR - People detail isti.cnr.it. Checked 22 October 2026.
  9. People – AIMH aimh.isti.cnr.it. Checked 22 October 2026.