Andrea Lacava
Postdoctoral Research Fellow,
Institute for the Wireless Internet of Things
Contact
- a.lacava@northeastern.edu
- EXP building
815 Columbus Ave,
Boston, MA 02120
Office
- EXP 650
Research Focus
5G and beyond networks, Open RAN architectures, real-time AI-based control, Deep Reinforcement Learning, and network security.
About
Andrea Lacava is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Institute for the Wireless Internet of Things (WIoT) at Northeastern University. He holds a double PhD in Computer Engineering and Information and Communication Technology from Northeastern University and Sapienza University of Rome. His research focuses on 5G and beyond networks, Open RAN architectures, real-time AI-based control, Deep Reinforcement Learning, and network security. He is the lead creator of ns-O-RAN, a framework that integrates an O-RAN-compliant E2 interface with ns-3 simulations to enable xApp development and large-scale data generation. He has also contributed several proposals to the Open RAN paradigm, including the architectural design of dApps—control applications for sub-millisecond, AI-driven decision-making in Open RAN systems. His work has been recognized with several awards, including the IEEE Globecom 2024 Best Paper Award.
Education
Ph.D., Computer Engineering, Northeastern University, 2025
Ph.D., Information and Communication Technology (ICT), Sapienza University of Rome, 2025
M.Sc., Cybersecurity, Sapienza University of Rome, 2025
B.Sc., Computer Engineering, Sapienza University of Rome, 2018
Honors & Awards
- Best Demo Award Runner-Up at IEEE CCNC 2025 – Enabling Deep Reinforcement Learning Research for Energy Saving in Open RAN
- Best Paper Award at IEEE Globecom 2024 – Twinet: Connecting Real World networks to their Digital Twins through a Live Bidirectional Link
Teaching Interests
- Wireless networks
- Programmable Networks
- Data Science for networks
Leadership Positions
Research Overview
5G and beyond networks, Open RAN architectures, real-time AI-based control, Deep Reinforcement Learning, and network security.
Department Research Areas
Selected Publications
This list is indicative and does not fully reflect the latest status of my works. You can find a detailed list about my publications at my Scopus author page and into my Google Scholar profile.
- dApps: Enabling real-time AI-based Open RAN control, 2025, Journal of Computer Networks, doi: 10.1016/j.comnet.2025.111342 Andrea Lacava, Leonardo Bonati, Niloofar Mohamadi, Rajeev Gangula, Florian Kaltenberger, Pedram Johari, Salvatore D’Oro, Francesca Cuomo, Michele Polese, Tommaso Melodia doi github preprint project presentation tutorial
- Programmable and customized intelligence for traffic steering in 5G networks using Open RAN architectures, 2022, IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing, doi: 10.1109/TMC.2023.3266642 Andrea Lacava, Michele Polese, Rajarajan Sivaraj, Rahul Soundrarajan, Bhawani Shanker Bhati, Tarunjeet Singh, Tommaso Zugno, Francesca Cuomo, Tommaso Melodia arxiv preprint github ns-3-mmwave-oran github ns-o-ran ieee ns-o-ran presentation tutorial
- Securing Bluetooth Low Energy networking: An overview of security procedures and threats, 2022, Journal of Computer Networks Andrea Lacava, Valerio Zottola, Alessio Bonaldo, Francesca Cuomo, Stefano Basagni pdf