Maria Pia Fanti received the Laurea degree in Electronic Engineering from the University of Pisa (Italy), in 1983. She was a visiting researcher at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute of Troy, New York, in 1999. Since 1983 she has been with the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering of the Polytechnic of Bari (Italy), where she was Assistant Professor from 1990 till 1998 and Associate Professor from 1990 till April 2012.at The University of Alabama in 2006. Dr. Li is a member of IEEE and a member of ASME

Maria Pia Fanti research interests include Discrete event systems, Petri net, consensus algorithms, networked and control systems, management and modeling of logistic systems, automated manufacturing systems, automatic guided vehicle systems, traffic networks, and healthcare systems.