Stefano Casalegno

Stefano Casalegno is an ecologist with a focus on forestry and spatial ecological modeling. He graduated at Paris Sud University in 1995 in Natural Science (Licence ès Sciences Naturelle). In 2001 he defended a PhD in ecology, GIS and remote sensing at the Institut National Agronomique Paris-Grignon (France). His research has focused on spatial-ecological modeling and the impact of climate change on vegetation. Specific research topics have included hedgerow ecology, plant insect and plant bird interactions (Univ. Paris Sud and Univ. of Bristol, Kibale Forest Nat. Park Uganda, 1996); mountain forest ecotones and vegetation belt mapping (CEFE - CNRS, France 1997, CIBNOR La Paz - Mexico 1998, INA P-G France 1999-2001); biofuels, forestation potential and forest yield estimations (INRA Versailles - MAICh Crete 2002); integrated studies for the assessment of forest condition and climate change impact on European forests (Joint Research Centre of the European Commission 2004-2008). Since 2009 Dr. Casalegno has been teaching spatial ecological modeling at different European universities. Recently, he has been working on open access data and open source models for suitability modeling of alpine ecosystems, European forests, urban greening and peri-urban forests. He is currently a senior researcher at the Bruno Kessler Foundation in Trento (Italy) working with the research group MPBA (Predictive Models for Biomedicine and Environment) applying machine learning techniques and cluster processing to climate change applications.