THANK YOU!

Life is too short, and we are very lucky to be in this world and we should never stop thinking that "Love and work are the cornerstones of our humanness" (Sigmund Freud).
Hence, I want to spend a few words to thank some of the people I love, including the great working environments I have (or had) the possibility to work with. I will use one/two word(s) to summarize them.

About my working experience…

My P.h.D. studies at the University of Sannio (UoS) represent the period of my life that I call “push” or “run”. I had to do everything very fast, had to work very hard to make a P.h.D. to be enough proud of. Here I want to thank Gerardo and Massimiliano. Probably, considering my skills and personality, they were the best advisors I could have for my Ph.D. One of my best collaborators and friend at UoS is Andrea Di Sorbo. We started working together from his P.h.D. at the UoS and now he is an assistant professor in Italy. He is creative and brilliant, and also a very nice person. More important, His working and ethical principles are a quite nice light in this strange, sometimes unfair academic world, thanks, Andrea! In general, I got nice friends/colleagues at UoS and abroad during my P.h.D., too many to mention one specifically, I thank them all for supporting me during the P.h.D. adventure and for making me feel at home on the few occasions I visit UoS again.

My postdoctoral experience at the University of Zurich (UZH) was a rather different period of my life, I call it “flexibility” or “independence”. I had a nice and flexible environment at UZH (maybe too flexible) and I can say that “independence” is quite an important quality to have/gain to make it at UZH. Also here “pushing” myself over my limits was a key aspect. Here I have many people to thank:
- Harald, for supporting my research initiatives and for introducing me to the UZH world. During my experience in the SEAL group, I had the opportunity to grow from a professional (and personal) point of view. I am deeply thankful for this experience. Thanks Harald!
- All students that I had the pleasure to teach and/or work with. Among them, It was very fun to work with Carol Alexandru. We are good friends now and it is nice to catch up from time to time with him. Thanks Carol!
- Mario Caputo for the intense/fun soccer chats about the AS Roma, our Favourite Italian soccer team. We meet often and still talk a lot about the AS Roma and other interesting topics. Thanks Mario!
- Many other people I started working with during my postdoctoral experience in the EU, USA, ASIA and Canada (e.g., Giulio Antoniol). About this, during 2017 I had the opportunity to have a research meeting with Prof. Oscar Nierstrasz (UniBe). I consider it, one of the most important meetings of my career. Oscar has a unique talent in helping people to focus on themself and their interests, which was critical for me to any successful research projects or proposals afterward.

ZHAW, my current working environment, is an environment that is linked with the part of my life that I call “relevance” or “impact”: a part of my life that I am more interested to focus mainly on things that are most relevant or can have an impact for me, not only on at a professional level.
- Here I had/have quite interesting interactions and good work experience with colleagues such as Sean, Leonardo, Thilo, Nicolas, Sajad, Christian, and Gabriela, etc. They have rather different research views from mine, but one can learn a lot from them. One of my best colleagues and friend at ZHAW is Sean Murphy. We worked on several activities that led to the acceptance of the COSMOS H2020 project proposal where I act as technical coordinator. Beside His technical competence, His working and ethical principles are something I admire of him. Thanks, Sean!

- More in general, I want to thank all other people from academia and industry that I have/had the possibility to collaborate with on project proposals, projects, publications, and the development of tools. Among them, I am glad to have met Davide Scaramuzza in 2020, a well-known professor in robotics at UZH. I am learning a lot from you, thanks!
- In the last years I had the opportunity to work more intensively with Domenico Bianculli and Fabrizio Pastore (currently we are working together on the COSMOS EU project) from the University of Luxembourg as well as with Alessio Gambi from the University of Passau. So far had just a very good experience with them, they are professional, passionate and fun to work with. Thank you guys!
- In the last 3-4 years I had the opportunity to work with Pooja Rani (currently PhD student at the University of Bern). We work massively since her second year of the P.h.D. (I am acting as her co-supervisor), and she impressed me in terms of determination and creativity. I am pretty sure that we will hear good things about her in the future.

On a personal side….

I want to briefly thank some of the people I deeply love: my Mum, my Father, my Sister Lucia La Verghetta (and her Husband Michele), my Brother Annibale Panichella. They are what I call "identity": Everything good I was, I am and I will be is mainly the results of their love.

I want to thank my old/new neighborhoods, family, all my friends in Switzerland, Italy and other countries. You are a source of significant positive energy for me and I deeply love any moment I have the pleasure to spend with all of you.

Finally, “unique” is a recurrent word that I connect with my wife Cristiana Bersaglieri. I deeply believe that there is one unique person that we can actually really love in our life, no matter is the sex/provenance of that person.
Cristiana, thanks for being my one