Dr. Giovanni Merola
Raised and educated in Rome, Italy, Giovanni completed a double major Bachelor degree in Statistics and Economics from the university La Sapienza in Rome. He completed his Masters and Ph.D. in Statistics at the University of Waterloo in 1994 and 1998, respectively. He was associate professor at the Polytechnic University of Catalunya in Spain, then moved to work in the area of Privacy Protection first at the National Statistics Office (ISTAT) in Rome and then at the Office for National Statistics (ONS) in London, UK. He was employed for several years at a large hedge fund based in London, UK, researching systematic trading strategies for Futures. He returned to Academia in 2010, first at RMIT Vietnam and then at Xian Jiaotong-Liverpool University in China and later in India.
Giovanni’s research interests span from Multivariate Analysis to Privacy Protection and Statistical Learning, with a strong interest in computation, data analysis and visualization. He authored several refereed publications. He is proficient in programming, favouring the statistical language R and C++0, among others.
ACADEMIC QUALIFICATIONS
- Tertiary Graduate Certificate in Teaching and Learning (2012)
RMIT, Australia
- Ph.D. in Statistics (1998)
University of Waterloo, Canada
- Masters in Mathematics (Statistics) (1994)
University of Waterloo, Canada
- Bachelor Degree (Laurea) double major in Statistics and Economics (1992)
University “La Sapienza”, Roma
PROFESSIONAL APPOINTMENTS
- British University Vietnam (BUV)
Senior Lecturer (2025 – Present)
-
Alliance University & MIT World Peace University (India)
Professor (2022 – 2023)
-
Xian Jiaotong-Liverpool University (China)
Lecturer V (2016 – 2022)
-
RMIT University (Vietnam)
Senior Lecturer (2010 – 2016)
-
Winton Capital Management
Quantitative Analyst ( 2006 – 2009)
-
ISTAT (Italy) & ONS (UK)
Senior Methodologist (2002 – 2006)
-
Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (Spain)
Associate Professor (1999 – 2001)
RESEARCH AREAS
-
Multivariate Analysis
-
Computational Statistics
-
Machine Learning
RESEARCH PUBLICATIONS
-
Merola, G. M. & Chen, G. (2019). Projection sparse principal component analysis: An efficient least squares method. Journal of Multivariate Analysis, 173, 366–382.
-
McCauley, B., Gumbley, S., Merola, G. M. & Do, T. (2016). Facebook in Vietnam: Uses, Gratifications & Narcissism. Open Journal of Social Sciences, 4(11), 69–79. Link
-
Merola, G. & Abraham, B. (2002). Dimensionality Reduction Approach to Multivariate Prediction. Computational Statistics and Data Analysis, Special Issue on PLS.
RESEARCH PRESENTATIONS & EXHIBITIONS
-
62nd ISI World Statistics Congress, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (2019)
Topic: Improved estimation of wealth indices from asset counts -
61st ISI World Statistics Congress, Marrakech, Morocco (2017)
Topic: High-frequency financial time series, pattern recognition and volatility -
International Symposium on Business and Industrial Statistics (ISBIS), Bangkok, Thailand (2012)
Topic: A new framework for measuring disclosure risk for tabular data
RESEARCH GRANTS
-
2019 – Summer Undergraduate Research Framework Grant, Xian Jiaotong-Liverpool University
Project: Analysis of Chinese stock prices with respect to risk reward – 5,000 RMB -
2019 – Research Development Fund, Liverpool University
Project: Reducing the effect of data clumping in the estimation of wealth indices – 60,400 RMB
Collaborators: Dr. Bob Baulch (IFPRI, Malai), Prof. Marco Bonetti (Bocconi, Italy), Dr. Yang Chen (XJTLU) -
2012 – Personal Grant, Italian Institute for Commerce, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
Project: Analysis of the perception of “Made in Italy” in Vietnam – 20,000 USD
Collaborator: Dr. Mattia Miani
- Share
Read more 
Senior Lecturer
Head Academic Quality
Dr. Jyotsna Ghildiyal Bijalwan is an academic, an author and researcher with a diverse international work experience in teaching undergraduate and postgraduate students. She holds Graduation and Master degrees in Commerce from University of Mumbai, India. She is also a Master of Business Administration (Finance) and MPhil. She got her doctoral degree in Management from […]
Lecturer
Head, English Department
Raised and educated in Volgograd, Russia, Yulia completed a Bachelor’s degree in Education from Volgograd State Pedagogical University in 2003, followed by a Master’s Degree in Language Education in 2005 from the same university. A full-time postgraduate student, Yulia developed her Master’s research into a doctor’s degree and completed her PhD thesis in Cognitive Linguistics […]
Lecturer
Dr. Aiwa RomyHailing from Kerala, South India, Aiwa completed her Bachelor’s degree in Travel and Tourism from Pazhassiraja College, Calicut University, Kerala in 2014. Following graduation, she moved to Malaysia to pursue her MSc. in Tourism by research from Taylor’s University (2014-2017) , and continued there until the completion of her Doctoral studies in 2021. During her […]
Senior Teaching Fellow
Hoang Bao LongBao Long is a lecturer, researcher, entrepreneur and interaction design expert specializing in game design, interaction design, user experience and psychology. He is also interested in entrepreneurship and startups, applying human-centered design to developing products to solve modern social life problems. Outside of teaching, he also is co-founder of LacBird Co. – a game company […]
Associate Lecturer
Alex Gaja OrtegaAfter completing a Master’s Degree in Architecture and various other academic, professional and research experiences in Spain, Poland, France and Japan, in 2015, Alex arrived in Vietnam, where he developed his career both in design consultancy for international offices and higher education. Among his recent professional milestones worth highlighting is the Cityscape Awards in 2019 […]
Teaching Practitioner
Bui Hoang Ha ChauChau is a seasoned professional in software development, particularly in game development, with over 10 years of experience. He graduated from FPT University with a Bachelor’s degree in Software Engineering in 2017 and later earned a Master’s degree in Software Engineering from FSB (FPT School of Business & Technology). With a deep passion for technology […]
Senior Lecturer
Programme Lead - Computer Science
Raised and educated in India, Viju Prakash completed a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science and Engineering from Anna University. Following graduation, in 2005, he completed a Master of Computer Science and Engineering from Anna University. He later completed his PhD titled, “A Power Aware Routing Protocol in Wireless Sensor Networks” in Computer Science and Engineering. […]
Associate Professor
Programme Lead - Tourism Management
Originally from Germany, Maren gained her PhD from Edinburgh Napier University in the UK in 2016 with a thesis exploring commemorative narratives of the anniversary events of the fall of the Berlin Wall. She also holds an undergraduate degree in International Hospitality Management from Stenden University in the Netherlands and an MSc in Tourism and Events from the University of […]
Lecturer
Dr. Anam AshrafSoftware Engineering Lecturer with over 5 years of academic and industry experience. Holds a PhD in Management Sciences and Engineering from China (2025), and earned her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Software Engineering from NUST, Pakistan (2015). Her research focuses on UX/UI design and user-centered computing. She has worked on software projects aimed at improving […]
Senior Lecturer
Programme Lead – Film and Media Production
Born in Perth, Western Australia, composer and sound designer Ross Adrian Williams has written music and designed sound across a range of styles for theatre, film, animation, dance, museum installation, 360° video and VR. His work for award winning abstract, documentary, animated and narrative films have been shown in festivals, and installations around the world […]
