About Me

I am the Academic Coordinator of the Software Institute — USI, Lugano and the Brand Ambassador for CodeLounge. Previously, I was a postdoctoral researcher in the REVEAL research group led by Prof. Dr. Michele Lanza.

I obtained my Bachelor, Master, and Ph.D. Degrees in Informatics at USI.

Research Interests

  • Software Evolution & Visualization

    I am passionate about using visualizations to support the understanding of software

  • Mining Software Repositories

    It is exciting to discover interesting and usable information about software

  • Reverse Engineering

    It is fascinating to take software apart, analyze its functions and understand how it works

  • Interaction Data

    A topic close to my heart, being the subject of my doctoral dissertation

Publications

I co-authored 1 journal article, 28 peer-reviewed conference papers, and I wrote 3 theses.

Journal Articles

J1 CodeCity: A Comparison of On-Screen and Virtual Reality
David Moreno-Lumbreras, Roberto Minelli, Andrea Villaverde, Jesus Gonzalez-Barahona, Michele Lanza 		IST Vol. 153

Conference Papers

C28 On the Rise of Modern Software Documentation
Marco Raglianti, Csaba Nagy, Roberto Minelli, Bin Lin, Michele Lanza 		ECOOP 2023
C27 SYN: Ultra-Scale Software Evolution Comprehension
Gianlorenzo Occhipinti, Csaba Nagy, Roberto Minelli, Michele Lanza 		ICPC 2023
C26 DiscOrDance: Visualizing Software Developers Communities on Discord
Marco Raglianti, Csaba Nagy, Roberto Minelli, Michele Lanza 		ICSME 2022
C25 Using Discord Conversations as Program Comprehension Aid
Marco Raglianti, Csaba Nagy, Roberto Minelli, Michele Lanza 		ICPC 2022
C24 M3triCity: Visualizing Evolving Software & Data Cities
Susanna Ardigò, Csaba Nagy, Roberto Minelli, Michele Lanza 		ICSE 2022
C23 CodeCity: On-Screen or in Virtual Reality?
David Moreno-Lumbreras, Roberto Minelli, Andrea Villaverde, Michele Lanza, Jesus M. Gonzalez-Barahona 		VISSOFT 2021
C22 Visualizing Data in Software Cities
Susanna Ardigò, Csaba Nagy, Roberto Minelli, Michele Lanza 		VISSOFT 2021
C21 Voronoi Evolving Treemaps
Davide Paolo Tua, Roberto Minelli, Michele Lanza 		VISSOFT 2021
C20 Visualizing Discord Servers
Marco Raglianti, Roberto Minelli, Csaba Nagy, Michele Lanza 		VISSOFT 2021
C19 Visualizing GitHub Issues
Aron Fiechter, Roberto Minelli, Csaba Nagy, Michele Lanza 		VISSOFT 2021
C18 Visualizing Evolving Software Cities
Federico Pfahler and Roberto Minelli and Csaba Nagy and Michele Lanza 		VISSOFT 2020
C17 Visualizing the Evolution of Working Sets
Roberto Minelli, Andrea Mocci, Michele Lanza 		VISSOFT 2016
C16 Taming the IDE with Fine-grained Interaction Data
Roberto Minelli, Andrea Mocci, Romain Robbes, Michele Lanza 		ICPC 2016
C15 Measuring Navigation Efficiency in the IDE
Roberto Minelli, Andrea Mocci, Michele Lanza 		IWESEP 2016
🏆 Best Paper Award
C14 UrbanIt: Visualizing Repositories Everywhere
Andrea Ciani, Roberto Minelli, Andrea Mocci, Michele Lanza 		ICSME 2015
C13 SODA: The Stack Overflow Dataset Almanac
Nicolas Latorre, Roberto Minelli, Andrea Mocci, Luca Ponzanelli, Michele Lanza 		MUD 2015
C12 Blended, Not Stirred: Multi-Concern Visualization of Large Software Systems
Tommaso dal Sasso, Roberto Minelli, Andrea Mocci, Michele Lanza 		VISSOFT 2015
C11 The Plague Doctor: A Promising Cure for the Window Plague
Roberto Minelli, Andrea Mocci, Michele Lanza 		ICPC 2015
C10 I Know What You Did Last Summer — An Investigation of How Developers Spend Their Time
Roberto Minelli, Andrea Mocci, Michele Lanza 		ICPC 2015
C9 Free Hugs — Praising Developers For Their Actions
Roberto Minelli, Andrea Mocci, Michele Lanza 		ICSE 2015
C8 Towards Self-Adaptive IDEs
Roberto Minelli 		ICSME 2014
C7 Visual Storytelling of Development Sessions
Roberto Minelli, Lorenzo Baracchi, Andrea Mocci, Michele Lanza 		ICSME 2014
C6 Quantifying Program Comprehension with Interaction Data
Roberto Minelli, Andrea Mocci, Michele Lanza, Takashi Kobayashi 		QSIC 2014
C5 Visualizing Developer Interactions
Roberto Minelli, Andrea Mocci, Michele Lanza, Lorenzo Baracchi 		VISSOFT 2014
C4 Visualizing the Workflow of Developers
Roberto Minelli, Michele Lanza 		VISSOFT 2013
C3 SAMOA - A Visual Software Analytics Platform for Mobile Applications
Roberto Minelli, Michele Lanza 		ICSM 2013
C2 DFlow - Towards the Understanding of the Workflow of Developers
Roberto Minelli, Michele Lanza 		SATToSE 2013
C1 Software Analytics for Mobile Applications - Insights & Lessons Learned
Roberto Minelli, Michele Lanza 		CSMR 2013

Theses

T3 Interaction-Aware Development Environments
Roberto Minelli 		PhD Thesis
T2 Software Analytics for Mobile Applications
Roberto Minelli 		Master Thesis
T1 Commit 2.0 for Eclipse - Enriching Commit Comments with Software Visualization
Roberto Minelli 		Bachelor Thesis

Service

I serve the academic community taking part in organizing and program committees: I served 4 times as Program Chair, I have been part of 16 other Organizing Committes, and been involved in 11 Program Committees. As for internal service at the Software Institute, I have co-organized events, conducted 12 outreach activities, and I am acting as a "bridge" between our research groups.

  • 4 Program Chair
  • 16 Organizing Committees
  • 11 Program Committees
  • 12 Outreach Activities

Program Chair

VISSOFT 2023
11th IEEE Working Conference on Software Visualization 		Oct 1-2, 2023
Bogotá, Colombia
VISSOFT 2022
10th IEEE Working Conference on Software Visualization 		Oct 3-4, 2022
Limassol, Cyprus
VISSOFT 2020 (NIER & Tool Demo Track)
8th IEEE Working Conference on Software Visualization 		Sep 28-29, 2020
Adelaide, Australia
VISSOFT 2019 (NIER & Tool Demo Track)
7th IEEE Working Conference on Software Visualization 		Sep 30-Oct 1, 2019
Cleveland, USA

Organizing Committees

Organizing Team @ Swiss Verification Day 2025
The 2nd edition of the annual gathering of the Swiss formal methods and verification community.		 Feb 13, 2025
Lugano, Switzerland
Organizing Team @ SIESTA 2024
4th International Software Engineering Summer School co-organized by the Software Institute and the Dipartimento di Informatica of the Università degli Studi di Bari Aldo Moro		 Sep 4-6, 2024
Bari, Italy
Organizing Team @ FUSE 2024
1st International Symposium on the Future of Software Engineering		 Jun 3-6, 2024
Okinawa, Japan
Organizing Team @ SIESTA 2023
3rd International Software Engineering Summer School organized by the Software Institute 		Sep 11-13, 2023
Lugano, Switzerland
Organizing Team @ #FormulaUSI 2022
The 2nd AI-based self-driving car competition organized by the Software Institute 		Nov 11-13, 2022
Lugano, Switzerland
Hybrid Experience Coordinator @ ICER 2022
18th ACM Conference on International Computing Education Research		 Aug 7-10, 2022
Lugano, Switzerland
Local Chair @ iFM 2022
17th International Conference on integrated Formal Methods		 Jun 7-10, 2022
Lugano, Switzerland
Publicity and Virtualization Chair @ SI Summit 2022
A day of invited talks on Sotware Engineering by leading researchers and practitioners		 Feb 17, 2022
Lugano, Switzerland
Organizing Team @ #FormulaUSI 2021
The 1st AI-based self-driving car competition organized by the Software Institute		 Nov 5-7, 2021
Lugano, Switzerland
Local Chair @ iFM 2020
16th International Conference on integrated Formal Methods		 Nov 16-20, 2020
Lugano, Switzerland
Organizing Team @ USI Hackathon 2019
A hackathon aimed at "making data alive" organized by CodeLounge		 Nov 15-17, 2019
Lugano, Switzerland
Artifact Track Chair @ ICSME 2019
35th IEEE International Conference on Software Maintenance and Evolution		 Sep 30-Oct 4, 2019
Cleveland, USA
Organizing Team @ SIESTA 2019
2nd International Software Engineering Summer School co-organized by the Software Institute and the Università degli Studi del Molise		 Sep 3-6, 2019
Termoli, Italy
Co-Organizer @ MAINT 2018
2nd International Workshop on Mining and Analyzing Interaction Histories		 Feb 24, 2018
Hangzhou, China
Artifact Track Chair @ VISSOFT 2018
7th IEEE Working Conference on Software Visualization		 Sep 24-25, 2018
Madrid, Spain
Organizing Team @ SIESTA 2018
1st International Software Engineering Summer School organized by the Software Institute 		Sep 10-12, 2018
Lugano, Switzerland

Program Committees

ICPC 2024 (Tool Demo Track)
32nd International Conference on Program Comprehension 		Apr 14-18, 2024
Lisbon, Portugal
ICSME 2022 (Tool Demo Track)
38th International Conference on Software Maintenance and Evolution 		Oct 3-7, 2022
Limassol, Cyprus
ICSME 2021 (Tool Demo Track)
37th International Conference on Software Maintenance and Evolution 		Sep 27-Oct 1, 2021
Luxembourg City, Luxembourg
VISSOFT 2021 (Research, NIER, and Tool Demo Tracks)
9th IEEE Working Conference on Software Visualization 		Sep 27-Sep 28, 2021
Luxembourg City, Luxembourg
ICSE 2021 (Tool Demo Track)
43rd International Conference on Software Engineering 		May 22-30, 2021
Madrid, Spain
ICPC 2020 (Research Track)
28th International Conference on Program Comprehension 		May 23-24, 2020
Seoul, South Korea
🏆 Distinguished Reviewer
NIP 2020
1st International Workshop on New Interfaces for Programming 		Mar 24, 2020
Porto, Portugal
ICSME 2019 (Tool Demo Track)
35th IEEE International Conference on Software Maintenance and Evolution 		Sep 30-Oct 4, 2019
Cleveland, USA
VISSOFT 2019 (Research Track)
7th IEEE Working Conference on Software Visualization 		Sep 30-Oct 1, 2019
Cleveland, USA
VISSOFT 2018 (NIER & Tool Demo Track)
5th IEEE Working Conference on Software Visualization 		Sep 18-19, 2018
Shanghai, China
VISSOFT 2016 (NIER & Tool Demo Track)
4th IEEE Working Conference on Software Visualization 		Oct 3-4, 2016
Raleigh, USA

Outreach Activities

Self-Driving Cars Workshop @ Sportech Tenero 2025 (Instructor)
An introductory workshop on autonomous driving during Sportech, an event held at the National Youth Sports Centre Tenero (CST) to discover the latest scientific and technical developments in sports. 		Jan 22-24, 2025
Tenero, Switzerland
Workshop on Self-Driving Vehicles for the Organization of Phänomena (Organizer)
A brainstorming session with the organizers of Phänomena to plan the thematic area dedicated to mobility and autonomous driving 		May 23, 2024
Dietikon, Switzerland
Workshop on Artificial Intelligence Applied to Self-Driving Cars (Instructor)
A half-day introduction on Artificial Intelligence applied to self-driving cars organized for Barbengo Middle School students 		Apr 19, 2024
Barbengo, Switzerland
DJI Tello EDU Programming Workshop 2023 (Instructor)
A full-day introduction to drone programming organized for Mendrisio High School students 		Nov 14, 2023
Lugano, Switzerland
DJI Tello EDU Programming Workshop 2023 (Instructor)
A half-day introduction to drone programming co-organized with IngCH for LiLu2 High School students 		Jun 13, 2023
Lugano, Switzerland
DJI Tello EDU Programming Workshop 2023 (Instructor)
A full-day introduction to drone programming organized for Mendrisio High School students 		Apr 4, 2023
Lugano, Switzerland
Self-Driving Cars Workshop @ Sportech Tenero 2023 (Promoter)
An introductory workshop on autonomous driving during Sportech, an event held at the National Youth Sports Centre Tenero (CST) to discover the latest scientific and technical developments in sports. 		Jan 25-27, 2023
Tenero, Switzerland
DJI Tello EDU Programming Workshop 2022 (Instructor)
A half-day introduction to drone programming organized for Barbengo Middle School students 		May 20, 2022
Barbengo, Switzerland
3D Printing Workshop @ TecDay Bellinzona 2022 (Instructor)
An event organized by SATW to support technology education in secondary schools 		Mar 15, 2022
Bellinzona, Switzerland
3D Printing Workshop @ TecDay Locarno 2019 (Instructor)
An event organized by SATW to support technology education in secondary schools 		Dec 3, 2019
Locarno, Switzerland
3D Printing Workshop @ Swiss Digital Day 2019 (Promoter)
The 3rd Digital Day organized by digitalswitzerland 		Sep 3, 2019
Lugano, Switzerland
3D Printing Workshop 2019 (Instructor)
An introduction to 3D printing organized at Scuola Media Gravesano 		Mar 27, 2019
Gravesano, Switzerland

Professional Affiliations

Since 2022 Steering Committee Member of VISSOFT (IEEE Working Conference on Software Visualization)
Since 2021 Enrolled in the Register of Expert Peer Reviewers for Italian Scientific Evaluation (REPRISE) established by the Italian Ministry of University and Research (MUR) to assess the quality of research (e.g., ANVUR VQR, PRIN)
Since 2012 Member of IEEE and IEEE Computer Society

Teaching

Over the years, I taught 1 course in the Master in Software and Data Engineering (MSDE), I served as teaching assistant for 8 courses, and I co-supervised 6 Master theses and 6 Bachelor projects.

Taught Courses

Software & Data Engineering Atelier: Design 101 FA 2022/2023 MSDE

Assisted Courses

Software & Data Engineering Atelier: Design 101 FA 2019/2020 MSDE
Software & Data Engineering Atelier: Design 101 FA 2018/2019 MSDE
Computer Architecture FA 2014/2015 BSc INF
Software Atelier IV SP 2014 BSc INF
Software Atelier IV SP 2013 BSc INF
Software Atelier I FA 2013/2014 BSc INF
Introduction to Software Engineering SP 2013 BSc INF
Software Design and Evolution FA 2012/2013 MSc INF

Co-supervised Theses

ST12 Design and Implementation of a Visual and Interactive Web Platform for Drug Binding Prediction Pre-Processing
Andrea Brites Marto, Master Thesis, 2024
ST11 Sensorial Software Evolution Comprehension
Gianlorenzo Occhipinti, Master Thesis, 2022
ST10 RUSE – Influencing Live Music Performances with Real-Time User Feedback
Andrea Brites Marto, Bachelor Project, 2021
ST9 M3TRICITY – A 3D Evolution-Resistant Visualization of Software Systems
Federico Pfahler, Master Thesis, 2020
ST8 Assessing the Impact of Readability in Software Engineering
Aron Fiechter, Master Thesis, 2020
ST7 SubThis! – A Web-Based Application to support the TED Translators Initiative
Gregory Wullimann, Bachelor Project, 2019
ST6 Comets – Real-Time Financial Market Visual Analytics
Jason Naldi, Bachelor Project, 2019
ST5 Large-Scale 3D Printing of Urban Areas
Simone Masiero, Bachelor Project, 2019
ST4 VisualDBLP – A Tool to Visualize How Researchers Collaborate Over Time
Piermarco Barbè, Bachelor Project, 2018
ST3 Parsing & Modeling Swift Systems
Alessio Buratti, Bachelor Project, 2017
ST2 UrbanIt: Mobile 3D Git Visualization
Andrea Ciani, Master Thesis, 2015
ST1 Visualizing Developers Interactions with the IDE
Lorenzo Baracchi, Master Thesis, 2014