Gianluca Brero was a postdoc at Brown at the Data Science Institute and in Computer Science for two years before starting as an Assistant Professor at Bryant University on August 1st. DSI spoke with Gianluca a month before beginning his new position to highlight his successful tenure at Brown and his goals for the future.

Tell us a bit about who you are and what you do at DSI.

My name is Gianluca Brero. I come from Italy, and I’ve been a postdoctoral fellow at Brown for two years with a joint appointment between DSI and CS.

My research focuses on designing markets, like Uber or AirBnB, that can be improved by using data from the real world to improve the rules and get better overall outcomes.

How did you begin studying markets?

I got my PhD in Computer Science from the University of Zurich in Switzerland, and that's where my research in markets started. My dissertation was based on using machine learning techniques to improve the design of very important markets that are called “spectrum auctions.”

Spectrum auctions are the auctions that are used by governments to assign spectrum licenses to mobile network operators. Verizon, for example, needs licenses to just provide their services, and these licenses are obtained through auctions. In the US, these auctions can generate billions of dollars of revenue. So even small improvements in these markets can lead to great benefits for the country.

These spectrum auction markets are already very complicated. But real world markets are even more complicated. These are the markets I have focused on at Brown.

Markets like Uber, for example, are extremely dynamic: people come and go; they join, they leave. My work mainly focuses on developing methods related to integrating data into the design of markets. The goal is to improve the allocation of resources in society and generate revenues. This could be for the private sector or the public sector, and also lead to more fair allocation of resources, which is, nowadays, a big problem.

What are some of your goals for your future research?

In the last year I have started some work in electricity markets. Electricity markets are key for sustainable development. They are very central for the decarbonization of the country. If I can set a very high target for myself, I hope that I can contribute to climate change issues and sustainability. 

Once I start as an Assistant Professor at Bryant University, I plan to start developing my research agenda and keep moving forward with the market design topics. I'm also excited to teach classes on AI and data science and to shape the future generation. Academia is a very special place where you have a lot of influence on the next generation of people that will populate this world. 

What was the most rewarding experience you’ve had during your time at Brown?

One unique opportunity I had here was designing a new course on data and ethics from scratch. 

In this course on data ethics, we started with more philosophical concepts of ethics, and then we brought in the data part and started really talking about ethics related to data science. We started with privacy and fairness, which have formalizations in mathematics, and then went into more open and broad questions that don’t have formalizations, like interpretability.

Seeing this course shaping up and getting to teach it was probably the most rewarding experience here because I got to interact with students, see my ideas become real, and develop a course that is taught to hundreds of students. 

Teaching this course also relates to my work with markets. Whenever you talk about fairness, markets play a big role. If I design markets that are revenue optimal, but they end up just distributing resources to some parts of the population and ignoring others, this can lead to long term problems. Keeping topics like fairness in mind, especially in my research, could be a huge advantage and also a good way to assess the outcomes of different markets. 

What is something really interesting that you've discovered in your research? 

I can mention one example. In my research, I have been studying how artificial intelligence agents operate in markets. And one interesting thing was figuring out that these agents can learn to collude between themselves and start cartels, without having been especially programmed to do so. With no communication, they were just starting to raise prices together. If a different agent was lowering the price, the other agents would punish the deviation. So just as humans might gather in a room and agree on policies, the AIs were also figuring that out.

This could be pretty undesirable, as you can imagine. In my research, I've tried to design interventions to prevent these outcomes. 

One way to intervene is to figure out a way to promote lower prices. So if you lower your price, I would give you a very highlighted position in the market. Think for example of the highlighted sellers that are more prominent on the page when you buy something from Amazon. So if you lower your price, you would break the cartel, but you would also get an advantage that may make you want to do that. 

Another way to intervene is to monitor the price trajectories that agents use. If you find that there are increasing prices, and one agent lowers their prices but is then punished by the other agents, this could be a signal of a cartel. Then you can try to intervene by putting agents out of the market as a punishment, or giving them less prominent positions on the web page, for example.

What has been your favorite part of working at DSI?

I love how interdisciplinary it is here at DSI. I have conversations about everything while having lunch. I think it is very enriching. These conversations will sometimes spark research ideas where you would not expect them to arise. At Brown I think there is a lot of cooperation, and research units are well integrated. I have always found a lot of help from colleagues at DSI and in the CS department. This is one of the best aspects from Brown that I will bring with me to my next adventure.

Outside of work, what do you do for fun?

I like to play the guitar. You can find me playing, maybe on a bench, in the evening. 

I also like to watch and do sports. I have a soccer group I like to join, and I’ll go see games around the area. 

I also like gathering with friends, and having barbecues during this nice part of the year.