Rehabilitation and Neural Engineering Laboratory

Max Novelli, MS

  • Head of Informatics and Data

Max Novelli is a Software Engineer, Data Architect, Data Manager with an MS equivalent degree ("Laurea") from Politecnico di Milano in Milan, Italy. He currently works as “Head of Informatics and Data” at Rehab Neural Engineering Lab at the University of Pittsburgh.

Max has over 20 years of experience in the IT field, more than 10 of which have been in the research field. Max’s background and extensive experience as a system administrator, programmer, data manager and architect help him to play a critical bridging role, spanning the gap between technology and user interaction.

Max started playing with a Commodore 16 a long time ago. Since that time, however, he has grown to become an expert with a vast understanding of data management and curation, Open Source software, Linux operating systems, Web technologies, and web CMSes. Max’s expertise does not stop there – his knowledge encompass sophisticated computing infrastructure and large storage systems targeted for research environments.


His latest interests is in big data, data management, architecture and curation applied to research data -- although he does not pass the opportunity to play with hardware and customized experimental equipment. In his current position, he is responsible for the overall IT infrastucture (servers, individual workstations, and experimental setup), the experimental data, as well as their safety, integrity, validation and curation. He is also leading few projects in data visualization with a particular focus in developing tools highlighting possible hierarchical anomalies in complex experimental data and also using neural networks to proof specific experimental results and translating them into proven tools.

When Max is not lost in "computer land", he enjoys spending time with his family and friends, playing with his sons, mountain–biking, hiking trails, swimming, walking (better on the beach), cross-country skying, eating extremely good food, sipping awesome wines, drinking outstanding espresso. He also expends a considerable amount of energy practicing, teaching and experimenting in yoga and organic movement. Lately, he has discovered and is honing his climbing skills.

Education & Training

  • Laurea from Politecnico di Milano, Milan, Italy