Materials

This page collects projects and academic reports produced before and during the first stages of my PhD.

Theses

• Parameter Control for LeadingOnes on Enhanced State Spaces
  MSc thesis, University of Pavia, 2025. Advisors: C. Doerr (Sorbonne Université/CNRS), S. Gualandi (University of Pavia).
  → Thesis (PDF) · Slides

• Ewens’ Sampling Formula and Applications to the Study of Biodiversity (Italian)
  BSc thesis, University of Pavia, 2025. Advisor: E. Dolera.
  → Thesis (PDF) · Slides

Student Reports and Research Projects

• Bayesian sampling via entropic approximations of the Knothe–Rosenblatt rearrangement
  With C. Ciliberto (UCL).

• Submodularity for Distributionally Robust Optimization
  Report, 2024. Supervisors: A. Georghiou (University of Cyprus), R. Paradiso (VU Amsterdam).
  A survey of submodular functions in distributionally robust optimization.
  PDF

• Statistical Study of Stochastic Optimization Problems
  Statistical Laboratory, University of Cambridge, 2024. Supervisors: Q. Zhao, T. Freidling.
  Consistency properties of stochastic optimization problems.
  PDF

• Sports Analytics at Sphaera
  Internship report, 2024. Supervisors: M. Messori, G. Marseglia.
  An algorithm combining neural networks and computer vision.
  PDF

Exam Projects

Some examinations during my studies included the preparation of a presentation or a written report. Relative materials are listed below.

Additional laboratory work and programming assignments developed during BSc and MSc courses are available on my GitHub profile:
→ github.com/gianlucacovini

PhD courses

• Machine Learning
  Optimal Transport for Generative Modeling

• Stochastic Processes
  Mean-field Schrödinger Problem

• Statistical Theory
  Merging Rate of Opinions via Optimal Transport on Random Measures

• Graph Theory
  Spectral Graph Theory and Discrete Poisson Equation: slides, report

• Julia Programming
  SlicedWasserstein.jl: a Julia package for sliced optimal transport and an application to clustering

• Optimization
  The Information Geometry of Optimization

• Optimal Transport
  The Gradient Flow Interpretation of the Fokker–Planck Equation

• Statistical Mechanics for Complex Systems
  Mean-Field Optimal Control

Master’s and Bachelor’s courses

• Statistical Methods for Physics
  Simulated Annealing: A Monte Carlo Algorithm for Non-convex Optimization

• Machine Learning
  Beans Classification

• Econometrics (Italian)
  Iscrizioni in scuole private

• Foundations of Data Science (Italian)
  SVD Randomizzata: un algoritmo per la riduzione della dimensionalità

• Optimization Algorithms and Models (Italian)
  Round-Based Public Transit Routing: un algoritmo per il trasporto multimodale

• Numerical Modeling (Italian)
  Il problema del pendolo

• Numerical Analysis (Italian)
  Metodi iterativi per sistemi lineari e integrazione numerica