About

Leonardo Bonati is an Associate Research Scientist at the Institute for the Wireless Internet of Things, Northeastern University, Boston, MA, USA. He received a Ph.D. degree in Computer Engineering from Northeastern University in 2022. His main research focuses on softwarized approaches for the Open Radio Access Network (RAN) of the next generation of cellular networks, on O-RAN-managed networks, and on network automation, orchestration, and virtualization. He was awarded the 2024 Mario Gerla Award for Research in Computer Science. Leonardo served as TPC co-chair for the Workshop on Digital Twins over NextG Wireless Networks (DTwin) of IEEE INFOCOM 2025, as co-chair for the track on Testbeds, Experimentation and Datasets for Communications and Networking of IEEE CCNC 2025, and as guest editor of the special issue of Elsevier Computer Networks on Advances in Experimental Wireless Platforms and Systems. He is currently serving as co-chair of the special session on Experimental Wireless Communications at European Wireless 2025, and for the track on Testbeds, Experimentation and Datasets for Communications and Networking of IEEE CCNC 2026.

Awards
  • 2024, ISSNAF Young Investigator Mario Gerla Award for Research in Computer Science. Press: ANSA News Agency PR.
  • 2022, Northeastern University’s College of Engineering Outstanding Ph.D. Research Award.
  • 2021, IEEE Communications Society Student Conference Grant to attend the IEEE International Conference on Computer Communications (INFOCOM).
  • 2019, Best Paper Award at the ACM International Workshop on Wireless Network Testbeds, Experimental evaluation & CHaracterization (WiNTECH) for the paper

    L. Bertizzolo, L. Bonati, E. Demirors, and T. Melodia, "Arena: A 64-Antenna SDR-Based Ceiling Grid Testbed for Sub-6 GHz Radio Spectrum Research," in Proceedings of ACM WiNTECH, Los Cabos, Mexico, October 2019. [pdf] [bibtex]

  • 2019, Best Paper Award at the IEEE International Symposium on a World of Wireless, Mobile and Multimedia Networks (WoWMoM) for the paper

    L. Ferranti, S. D’Oro, L. Bonati, E. Demirors, F. Cuomo, and T. Melodia, "HIRO-NET: Self-Organized Robotic Mesh Networking for Internet Sharing in Disaster Scenarios," in Proceedings of IEEE WoWMoM, Washington, D.C., USA, June 2019. [pdf] [bibtex]