Massimiliano Versace
Massimiliano Versace is the co-founder and the CEO of Neurala Inc, a Boston-based company building Artificial Intelligence emulating brain function in software and used in automating the process of visual inspection in manufacturing. He is also the founding Director of the Boston University Neuromorphics Lab. Massimiliano Versace is a Fulbright scholar and holds two PhDs in Experimental Psychology from the University of Trieste, Italy and Cognitive and Neural Systems from Boston University, USA. He obtained his BSc from the University of Trieste, Italy.
Professional life
Versace grew up in Monfalcone, Italy and came to the United States in 2001 as a Fulbright scholar. He holds a masters in psychology from the University of Trieste and two PhDs. As Artificial Intelligence Professor at Boston University, he founded the Neuromorphics Lab, and in 2009-2011 the lab led a main research thrust in the DARPA SyNAPSE in collaboration with Hewlett-Packard designing artificial nervous systems, based on deep learning, implemented on novel memristor-based devices. In December 2010, Versace published a cover-featured articled on the IEEE Spectrum describing the roadmap to develop a large scale brain model making use of memristor based technologies.The model designed by Versace and his colleagues, termed Modular Neural Exploring Traveling Agent was the first large-scale neural network model to implement whole-brain circuits to power a virtual and robotic agent compatibly with memristor-based hardware computations. A cover page article in IEEE Computer features the software platform and modeling implemented by the joint HP and Boston University teams, and the March 2012 edition of IEEE Pulse features his lab work on brain modeling.
From 2011 to 2016, Versace and his team at Neurala worked with NASA and successfully built deep learning models able to learn power navigation and perception for exploring novel environments in real-time.
His work has also been featured in TIME Magazines, New York Times, Nasdaq, The Boston Globe, Xconomy, IEEE Spectrum, Fortune, CNBC, The Chicago Tribune, TechCrunch, VentureBeat, Associated Press, Geek Magazine, and is a TEDx speaker.
In 2006, with two colleagues from Boston University, he co-founded Neurala Inc. to bring this technology to market in applications ranging from robots, to drones, and other smart devices.