On the PhD defense committee of Adnei Donatti at the University of São Paulo

On 10 June 2026, Bruno served on the PhD defense committee of Adnei Willian Donatti at the Polytechnic School of the University of São Paulo (USP), Brazil. Adnei defended his thesis Energy-Aware Orchestration in Network Slicing: An AI-Driven Approach to VNF Placement, supervised by Prof. Tereza Cristina Melo de Brito Carvalho at the LASSU laboratory.

The examining committee brought together networking professors from across Brazil: Joberto S. B. Martins (Universidade Salvador, UNIFACS), Christian Esteve Rothenberg (University of Campinas, UNICAMP), Cristina Klippel Dominicini (Federal Institute of Espírito Santo, IFES), and Flávio Geraldo Coelho Rocha (Federal University of Goiás, UFG), alongside Bruno.

The thesis treats energy efficiency not as an afterthought but as a first-order objective of network orchestration: it uses AI to decide where virtual network functions are placed in a sliced network, reducing energy consumption in the infrastructures that next-generation networks will run on, a step toward a more efficient and sustainable Future Internet.

Defenses in Brazil are a marathon compared to what most European candidates face: after a roughly 45-minute presentation, every committee member has up to 30 minutes for comments, questions, and open argument. Adnei was approved after an almost three-hour session, and earned it. Congratulations, Dr. Donatti! The final version of the thesis follows once the committee’s comments are incorporated.

The invitation also carried personal weight: Tereza was Bruno’s Master’s advisor. He worked in her lab from 2013 to 2016 as a junior research assistant on joint projects with Ericsson Research, the E2C and SOS projects the group still lists in its lineage, and wrote his Master’s thesis under her supervision. Returning as an examiner, eleven years later, closed a fine circle.