Viola Schiaffonati is Professor of Logic and Philosophy of Science at the Department of Electronics, Information and Bioengineering of Politecnico di Milano. She holds a PhD in Philosophy of Science and a master degree in Philosophy. She is external faculty member of the Diplomatische Akademie in Vienna (Austria) and has been visiting professor at TU Wien (2024), Università di Pisa (2019) and Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (2018). She has been senior Digital Humanism Fellow at IWM in Vienna (2024), Ermete Fellow at the University of Stuttgart (2022), visiting scholar at TU Delft (2016), Stanford University (2005) and University of California Berkeley (2000-2001).

Viola Schiaffonati’s research interests lie at the intersection of philosophy of science and technology and computer engineering. Her current research focuses on the following themes: the epistemological and ethical aspects of AI, ML, robotics and digital technologies; the investigation on the nature and role of experiments in computer engineering; the role of simulations in robotics.

Viola Schiaffonati serves as the director of the national laboratory of Informatics and Society of the Italian National Consortium of Informatics, as a member of the steering board of the forum of Philosophy and Engineering (fPET), as the chair of the ethics working group of IDEA League (a network of excellence of European technical universities) and as an elected member of the steering committee of the Italian Association for Logic and Philosophy of Science. She is one of the three founders of the group for the Social Sciences and Humanities for Science and Technology at Politecnico di Milano (META), chair of the Research Ethics Board of Politecnico di Milano and chair of the Committee of the Code of Ethics and Conduct of Politecnico di Milano. She serves as Associate Editor of the Springer journal Science and Engineering Ethics. In 2021-2022 she has been member of the European Commission Expert group on Artificial Intelligence and Data in Teaching and Learning, Directorate-general for education, youth, sport and culture.