Dr.Linda Altieri is a senior assistant professor in the Department of Statistical Sciences of the University of Bologna, after having served as a research fellow there. She has a bachelor’s degree in political science, a master’s and a Ph.D. in statistics. She completed her M.D. thesis and part of her Ph.D. project in the University of Glasgow, with short-term visits at the University of St. Andrews, and she has taken part in many national and international statistical conferences. In 2021, she obtained the National Scientific Qualification, an official Italian recognition for university professor position recruiting, based on scientific qualification criteria. Her research interests include Bayesian spatial modelling applied to environmental data, especially point process data, and diversity and entropy measures with a focus on urban data. She also works on temporal point processes for capture–recapture data with behavioural responses. She teaches statistics in diplomatic and international science and economics courses as well as environmental statistics in statistics and math courses. She has authored many papers and has been a reviewer in reputed journals of statistics.Professor Daniela Cocchi has been a full professor in the Department of Statistical Sciences of the University of Bologna since 1994. She has a Ph.D. in statistics from the Université Catholique de Louvain (Belgium). She has been a member of several scientific committees and councils of national and international statistical associations, an editor of statistical journals and principal investigator of a number of projects. From 2014 to 2016, she was a member of the Committee for Research Evaluation for the University of Bologna. From 2015 to 2022, she covered a number of positions within the Italian National Institute of Statistics (ISTAT), the most recent being as a coordinator of the ISTAT Methodology Advisory Committee. From 2017 to 2020, she was the principal investigator of an interdisciplinary project for statistical applications to environmental data (EPHASTAT), funded by the Italian Ministry of Education, Universities and Research. Since 2021, she has been a member of the European Statistical Governance Advisory Board (ESGAB). Her scientific research includes methods for finite population sampling and Bayesian spatial modelling, diversity measures and applications to environmental and epidemiological data. She has authored many papers in reputed journals of statistics and is active in promoting contacts with institutions interested in statistical analysis. Her teaching activities at the University of Bologna include Bayesian statistics, survey sampling and record linkage in undergraduate, master’s and Ph.D. courses.