The CINI Big Data Lab establishes two Distinguished Awards for the Best Ph.D. and the Best Master Theses in the area of Big data and Data science. The goals of the awards are to promote and recognize outstanding theses, increase the visibility of young researchers inside the lab as well as in the larger Italian scientific community, and inspire members of the big data and data science community thus facilitating transdisciplinary collaborations.

Eligible Ph.D. and Master's degree theses must be in the Big Data and Data Science fields and must have been successfully defended at an Italian university in 2022. Theses submitted by candidates in 2022, but waiting for the final evaluation, are also eligible.

The theses will be evaluated by a committee of experts based on originality and potential impact on the Big Data and Data Science community. Three candidates for each award will be selected and invited to remotely present their thesis to the committee before ITADATA2023. The two winners will be nominated during the awards ceremony scheduled at the end of the conference. They will be invited to publish an extended abstract of the thesis in the ITADATA2023 proceedings, and participate to (with full support) and give a talk at the conference that will be held on 11-13 September in Naples.

The candidate must submit the thesis in pdf via CMT3-ITADATA2023 under the track Awards by 31 May 2023, with the following information:

• Name and email address of the candidate;
• Title of the Master or Ph.D. thesis
• Name of the Master's degree or the Doctoral program
• Department/School that has awarded the Master's degree or the Ph.D.
• Date of the successful defense of the Master's thesis or the Ph.D. thesis
• An abstract of the thesis, (up to 3 pages in pdf format)
• Name and email address of the Supervisor of the submitted thesis
• The Supervisor's letter certifying that the thesis has been successfully defended or submitted
• The Supervisor's endorsement letter, and one more endorsement letter if available

The selection committee members for the 2023 competition are:

• Angelo Ciaramella, General Co-Chair of ITADATA 2023
• Alessandro Sperduti, Program Co-Chair of ITADATA 2023
• Marco Giolo, ALMAVIVA
• Alberto Riccabone, AVIO AERO
• Emanuela Merelli, CINI Big Data Lab (Chair)

The selection committee will solicit the opinion of members of the research community as appropriate. Theses supervised by members of the selection committee are not eligible.

The CINI Big Data Lab is committed to equal opportunities and welcomes submissions of outstanding theses from all authors.