Rita Cucchiara (born 13 March 1965) is an Italian computer engineer,academic,and researcher in the field of computer vision and artificial intelligence. She has been appointed Rector of the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia (UNIMORE) starting from 1 November 2025,succeeding Carlo Adolfo Porro. She is currently Full Professor of Computer Engineering at UNIMORE,where she directed the AImageLab and the Interdepartmental Research Center AI Research and Innovation (AIRI).[1]
Rita Cucchiara was born in Modena,Italy,on 13 March 1965. She graduated with honors in Electronic Engineering from the University of Bologna in 1989 and earned her Ph.D. in Electronic and Computer Engineering in 1993 from the same university. During her doctoral studies,she was a visiting researcher at the University College London.[2]
Academic career
Cucchiara began her academic career as a researcher at the University of Ferrara (1993-1998). She later joined the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia,where she became Associate Professor and,since 2005,Full Professor of Computer Engineering.
At UNIMORE she leaded the AImageLab and coordinated the AI Research and Innovation Center (AIRI). She has supervised numerous Ph.D. students and postdoctoral researchers,and teaches courses of "Computer Architecture" and "Computer Vision and Cognitive Systems".
Research
Cucchiara’s research focuses on computer vision,deep learning,multimodal vision-language models,generative AI,and human behavioral analysis in visual data. She is the author of over 600 scientific papers,with more than 33,000 citations and an h-index of 77,according to Google Scholar (2025).[3]
She has coordinated or contributed to numerous European and national research projects,including HUMAN-E-AI,ELSA,ELIAS,ELLiOT,FIT4MedRob,and EcoSistER (PNRR). Her recent work includes applications of AI for cultural heritage and infrastructure safety.
Board of Directors of ELLIS and ECVA (European Computer Vision Association);
Advisory Committees of the Computer Vision Foundation and the IEEE PAMI Technical Committee.
Election as Rector
On 27 June 2025,Cucchiara was elected Rector of the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia,defeating Tommaso Fabbri in the second round.[5] She officially assumed office on 1 November 2025,succeeding Carlo Adolfo Porro.
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