Department of Mathematics and Informatics, University of Catania, Italy.

Mario Gionfriddo is Professor of Geometry at the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, University of Catania, Italy, since 1981, after a period of nine years at Messina University. His main scientific interests lie in Graph Theory, Hypergraphs and Designs. He was director of research of an Italian national research project and more than 25 research projects of Catania University in the area of Combinatorial Geometry, Designs, Graphs and their Applications. He is a member of editorial board of several international journals, was guest editor of twelve special volumes of major international journals in the field, and was main organizer of a series of major international conferences in Italy (including such top conferences as “Combinatorics 92” and “Combinatorics 04”) with participation of famous mathematicians like C. Berge, P. Erdos, F. Harary and many others. In 1996-1999 he was the Head of the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, University of Catania. He was among the very few Italian mathematicians to study Graph Theory in 1970s, and is one of the originators of scientific school in Graphs, Hypergraphs ad Combinatorial Designs in Italy with many outstanding followers and collaborators all over the world. He is the author of more than 120 scientific papers and currently teaches the courses “Graph Theory” and “Combinatorial Geometry” for mathematics majors.