Gianluca Aguzzi
PhD Candidate - University of Bologna
Gianluca Aguzzi, an avid Scala enthusiast, is nearing the completion of his Ph.D. at the University of Bologna. His research focuses on the engineering of large-scale distributed systems through unconventional approaches, such as multi-agent reinforcement learning. Gianluca is also an active contributor to various open-source research software projects, including ScaFi and Alchemist. In addition to his research, he serves as a teaching assistant at the University of Bologna, where he instructs students on Scala and the Akka framework.
The talk
Scala in Academia: Insights from teaching, distributed large-scale systems and machine learning research
In this talk I will share a comprehensive account of my experiences with utilizing Scala within an academic setting.
I will begin by exploring the rationale behind our decision to adopt Scala for teaching. Subsequently, I will delve into my research on decentralized, large-scale distributed systems—specifically focusing on swarm robotics scenario. I will introduce ScaFi, a Scala-based toolset designed to facilitate the engineering of such systems, and provide real-world examples to demonstrate its efficacy.
Lastly, I will touch upon my work in the domain of reinforcement learning, evaluating the current landscape of machine learning libraries available in the JVM ecosystem.
I will conclude by discussing the most seamless approaches to integrating state-of-the-art machine learning libraries into the Scala toolchain leveraging ScalaPy.