IIT’s condolences for the untimely loss of the ProfessorEmeritus
Giuseppe Casalino, known by everyAone as Pino, Professor Emeritus at the University of Genoa, Department of Bioengineering Information Technology, Robotics and Systems Engineering, has left us prematurely.A
A scientist and lecturer with exceptional human and professional qualities, he is sorely missed in the IIT robotics community, where many of its members had the opportunity to get to know him and benefit from his teachings and advice.
Pino’s passing was announced in our Institute by the Scientific Director Giorgio Metta, who in his message to colleagues recalled an episode from 1996 when he was still a young PhD student. Pino used a chance meeting, the classic “coffee moment” at the university, to congratulate him and the whole group on the publication of an article in Transactions on Robotics and Automation. “It was Pino’s characteristically inclusive message that made everyone feel part of the wider robotics community,” Giorgio Metta recalled.
Among the various messages of sympathy and remembrance was one from our Senior Scientist Antonio Bicchi: “Pino made some important contributions to research in Automation and Robotics. He created some of the earliest iterative learning algorithms at a time when it was not even thought possible, and our students still refer to them. He worked on non-holonomic systems with the style of someone who solves the most difficult problems without arrogance, he created and directed a submarine robotics group that has grown worldwide, and, with ISME (Centro Nazionale Interuniversitario sui Sistemi Integrati per L’ambiente Marino – National Inter-University Centre on Integrated Systems for the Marine Environment), he created a veritable feather in our community’s cap. And he did much more. Pino has left an indelible mark on the association of automation researchers, with his engaging manner of making everyone feel part of the same community.”
Giorgio Metta, along with IIT’s roboticists and the entire community at the Institute, send their affectionate and heartfelt thoughts to Bice, Giulia and Greta.
