Piergiorgio Castioni

Piergiorgio Castioni

PhD Candidate
AlephSys Group
Universitat Rovira i Virgili
Tarragona, Spain

Contacts

E-mail - Google Scholar - X (formerly Twitter) - Linkedin

About

From the academic standpoint I am theory-oriented, but the computational part of my job also gives me great satisfaction. My background is mostly in statistical physics and dynamical systems, in particular in out-of-equilibrium physics, stochastic processes and network theory. However with my master thesis project in 2020 I have been began a journey through mathematical epidemiology that is still continuing to this day. In particular I have been focusing on epidemics on complex network, studying what effects the spatial heterogeneity has on the epidemic spreading, and epidemic control, in particular in relation to vaccines, optimal distribution strategies and the role of waning immunity.
Some other questions that interest me and on which I hope I will be able to work in the future are the following: the evolutionary dynamics of pathogens and its effect on the epidemic patterns; multi-strain epidemic models and what is the effect of the interactions among different pathogens; and finally within-host models, for the insights that they give into many of the microscopic effects that are sometimes overlooked in population-level approaches.

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Publications

• The spread of the Delta variant in Catalonia during summer 2021: Modelling and interpretation
  Benjamin Steinegger, Giulio Burgio, Piergiorgio Castioni, Clara Granell, Alex Arenas
  Journal of Infection and Public Health (2025)
• Network-Driven Vaccination Strategies for Preventing Rebound Dynamics in Metapopulation Epidemic Control (preprint)
  Piergiorgio Castioni, Alex Arenas
  arXiv (2025)
• Rebound in epidemic control: How misaligned vaccination timing amplifies infection peaks
  Piergiorgio Castioni, Sergio Gómez, Clara Granell, Alex Arenas
  NPJ Complexity (2024)
• The voice of few, the opinions of many: evidence of social biases in Twitter COVID-19 fake news sharing
  Piergiorgio Castioni, Giulia Andrighetto, Riccardo Gallotti, Eugenia Polizzi, Manlio De Domenico
  Royal Society Open Science (2022)
• Critical behaviour in interdependent spatial spreading processes with distinct characteristic time scales
  Piergiorgio Castioni, Riccardo Gallotti, Manlio De Domenico
  Communication Physics (2021)

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Talks (equal titles do not imply identical presentations)

2024

• Invited seminar at the university of Stockholm
  
• Invited seminar at the university of Padova
  Title: Rebound in epidemic control: How misaligned vaccination timing amplifies infection peaks
• Mediterranean School of Complex Networks (Grado, Italy) - Best Student Talk award
  Title: Rebound in epidemic control: How misaligned vaccination timing amplifies infection peaks
• NetSci, International School and Conference on Network Science (Quebec City, Canada)
  Title: Timing as a fundamental feature for an effective vaccination campaign against large resurgence of cases
• Jornada de Complexitat 2024 (Barcelona, Spain)
  Title: Timing as a fundamental feature for an effective vaccination campaign against large resurgence of cases
• NetSciX, International School and Conference on Network Science (Venice, Italy)
  Title: Vaccination strategies for COVID-19 in the Omicron era: A mathematical model analysis

2023

• NetSci, International School and Conference on Network Science (Vienna, Austria)
  Title: A model analysis of vaccination strategies for COVID-19 when countering reinfections and waning immunity in the Omicron era
• Doctoral Workshop in Computer Science and Math (Tarragona, Spain)
  Title: Vaccination Strategies for COVID-19 in the Omicron Era: A Mathematical Model Analysis
• Complenet, International Conference on Complex Networks (Aveiro, Portugal)
  Title: A model analysis of vaccination strategies for COVID-19 when countering reinfections and waning immunity in the Omicron era

2022

• CCS, Conference of Complex Systems (Palma de Mallorca, Spain)
  Title: Optimal vaccination strategies countering reinfections and waning immunity in a metapopulation model
• Mediterranean School of Complex Networks (Catania, Italy)
  Title: Critical behavior in interdependent spatial spreading processes with distinct characteristic time scales
• COMSOTEC, Workshop on Complex Sociotechnical Systems (Tarragona, Spain)
  Title: The voice of few, the opinions of many: evidence of social biases in Twitter COVID-19 fake news sharing

Posters

• Jornada de Complexitat 2023 (Barcelona, Spain)
  Title: Optimal vaccination strategies to counter the risk of COVID-19 reinfections: A mathematical model analysis
• Summer Schools of Statistical Physics of Complex Systems and Complex Socio-Technical systems (Palma de Mallorca, Spain) Title: Optimal vaccination strategies countering reinfections and waning immunity in a metapopulation model

(last updated on April 2025)