About me

My name is Daniele Di Mitri. I am a Professor of multimodal learning technologies at the German University of Digital Science, located in Potsdam, Germany.

Aside from this, I am also an associated researcher and BMBF junior research group leader (PI) in Artificial Intelligence in Education at the DIPF Leibniz Institute for Research and Information in Education. I was born in Bari, Italy. I moved in 2014 to the Netherlands and in 2020 to Germany. Europe is my homeland, but I am taking courses to become a global citizen.

My overarching mission is to shift current Education and Learning paradigms by leveraging the potentials of data, digital technology and Artificial intelligence and by following inclusive pedagogy and ethical practices. Education is the main driving force of social development because it shapes individuals, allows them to transmit values and brings about change. Education is how men and women deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world (Freire, 2000).

My interest in Education started when I was very young, at the age of 15. I became a student representative and union activist in Unione degli Studenti at local, national and international levels. I was a board member of OBESSU (2012-2014), a European youth organisation. I contributed to educational policy development with institutions such as the European Commission, OECD, and UNESCO. Later, I was vice president of the Lifelong Learning Platform with portfolios in digital learning and active citizenship.

My field of study is technology. I studied Computer science at University "Aldo Moro" Bari - Italy. My bachelor's thesis investigated how to use data and generate Learning Analytics to foster formative assessment by generating feedback and raising awareness both in teachers and learners. I completed a master's in Artificial Intelligence at the University of Maastricht, where I learnt about robotics, intelligent agents, data analysis and machine learning.

My work experience is also in the field of technology. I started working as a front-end developer and graphic designer. At the age of 19, I founded my web agency start-up Dimstud.io, which has provided businesses and organisations with ad-hoc web solutions and modern websites in five years. In 2015, I was selected as an Extreme Blue intern at IBM Amsterdam: there, with a team of four people, I prototyped the Ziggo Drone, an Emergency Autonomous Hotspot Drone whose function was to bring Wi-Fi connectivity on-demand.

I was a PhD candidate at the Faculty of Education (former Welten Institute) of the Open University in the Netherlands (2016-2020). The title of my PhD project is "Multimodal Tutor: adaptive feedback from multimodal experience capturing". I research data science in education, multimodal data, learning analytics, machine learning, wearable sensor support. Through wearable sensors and data mining techniques, we are investigating the potential of multimodal data for tracing learning activities across physical and digital spaces.

I received the Martin Wolpers Award as the best PhD project in the field of Technology-Enhanced Learning 2018 and was more recently nominated as AI Newcomer 2021 at the KI Camp.

At the DIPF, current research is focused on creating responsible AI for education and human support. I am a member of the CrossMMLA Special Interest Group of the Society of Learning Analytics Research, chair of the Learning Analytics Hackathon (LAKathon), and Multimodal Artificial Intelligence in Education workshop series.

At the German UDS, I lead a group in Augmented Feedback in multimodal learning technologies. I am responsible for the module on Immersive technologies, part of the master's in Advanced Digital Realities, which I am also coordinating.

Some topics that interest me:

Learning analytics across physical and digital spaces, multimodal data in learning, machine learning, artificial intelligence in education, intelligent tutoring systems, biofeedback, standards and interoperability (Experience API), semantic technologies, learner recommendation systems, user modelling and adaptation, digital formative assessment, and social network analysis.