Ernesto Damiani (Senior Member, IEEE) is the Senior Director of the Artificial Intelligence and Intelligent Systems Institute, Khalifa University, a Leader of the big data area at Etisalat British Telecom Innovation Center, the President of the Consortium of Italian Computer Science Universities (CINI), and Full Professor with Universita’ degli Studi di Milano, where he leads the SESAR Lab. His work has more than 17 000 citations on Google Scholar and more than 6 700 citations on Scopus, with an H-index of 35. His areas of interest include artificial intelligence, machine learning, big data analytics, edge/cloud security and performance, and cyber-physical systems. He was a recipient of the Stephen Yau Award from the Service Society, the Outstanding contributions Award from IFIP TC2, the Chester-Sall Award from IEEE IES, and a doctorate honoris causa from INSA Lyon, France, for his contribution to big data teaching and research.