Paolo Gaudiano

Paolo is using his expertise in business, technology and education to revolutionize how corporations think about diversity and what they do about it.

Paolo Gaudiano, PhD, is Founder and CEO of Aleria, a cloud-based platform that helps organizations plan, execute and measure the impact of Diversity & Inclusion initiatives. He is also the Executive Director of Quantitative Studies of Diversity and Inclusion (QSDI) at the City College of New York.
Paolo began his career in academia at Boston University in 1991, where he reached the level of tenured Associate Professor, teaching and doing research on computational neuroscience, robotics and machine learning. In 1999 he became Chief Scientist of Artificial Life, a company that applied machine learning to a variety of Internet usage and navigation problems.
In 2001 Paolo joined Icosystem Corporation, the applied R&D company from which Aleria was spun out in 2017. In his role as President and CTO, Paolo oversaw strategy, business development, research and software development efforts to solve complex business and technology problems for leading corporations (BP, Intel, NIKE, Eli Lilly, …), government agencies (US DoD, NASA, French Postal Service, …) and foundations (Rockefeller, Kellogg, MacArthur, …). He also spearheaded the creation of Infomous and Concentric Market, two of Icosystem’s spinoffs, and is an active board member of all three organizations.
Throughout his entrepreneurial career, Paolo maintained a passion for teaching, first as a Sr. Lecturer at Tufts University from 2008 through 2013, and since 2016 as an Adjunct at the City College of New York with dual appointments in the Economics & Business and Computer Science departments. Paolo holds degrees in Applied Mathematics, Aerospace Engineering and Computational Neuroscience.
Paolo is a prolific writer and public speaker. He has authored more than 50 peer-reviewed scientific publications, is a regular contributor to Forbes on “the Complexity of Diversity,” has contributed to numerous other publications including HBR, Quartz, Wired, CIO.com, MediaPost, VentureBeat and ExchangeWire. has been featured in numerous interviews and videos, and is a frequent speaker at industry and professional events. He has organized many events, including the 2018 CUNY Research Conference on Diversity & Inclusion. During his time at Boston University, he was recipient of a Young Investigator Award from the Office of Naval Research, a Neuroscience Fellowship from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, and the M.G.F. Fuortes and E.A. & J. Klingenstein Fellowships from the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, MA.
In late 2015 Paolo saw an opportunity to bring together every facet of his background and experience to pursue his vision of making our society more inclusive and equitable. Aleria and QSDI harness a mixture of business, technology, science and education to revolutionize the way corporations think about diversity, and what they do about it.