Flavio Esposito, Ph.D., associate professor of computer science at Saint Louis University (SLU), is an expert in computer networking. Esposito can explain the protocol failure that triggered outages on Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp and why we need geospatial research to prevent its occurrence in the future.

Esposito sees geospatial science as the science that collects, computes, and consumes any data that relates to space and time. Esposito said the misconfiguration that caused Facebook servers to appear impossible to geolocate from global Internet Service Providers has several explanations, aside from simple human errors.

Esposito received his Ph.D. in Computer Science at Boston University in 2013, and his Master of Science in Telecommunication Engineering from the University of Florence, Italy. His research interests include network management, network virtualization, and distributed systems. 

Esposito is a member of the faculty advisory board of SLU’s Geospatial Institute, a consortium of faculty and students from various disciplines to promote and develop new research ideas, and house high-tech computational facilities to advance research and enhance graduate and undergraduate education.

Esposito was awarded a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant in 2016 to research computer network management in response to disasters. Other research projects focused on data analytics and AI for plant science and precision agriculture, as well as data collection and processing with collaborators from SLU’s College for Public Health and Social Justice, during the COVID-19 pandemic.

About Saint Louis University

Founded in 1818, Saint Louis University is one of the nation’s oldest and most prestigious Catholic institutions. Rooted in Jesuit values and its pioneering history as the first university west of the Mississippi River, SLU offers more than 12,000 students a rigorous, transformative education of the whole person.

At the core of the University’s diverse community of scholars is SLU’s service-focused mission, which challenges and prepares students to make the world a better, more just place. Saint Louis University is one of nine Catholic universities with a higher or highest research activity designation from the Carnegie Foundation.

From the construction of a new Interdisciplinary Science and Engineering (ISE) Building to its remote sensing lab, and demonstrated by the extraordinary work of faculty and students in geospatial fields and beyond, academic life on SLU’s campus is vibrant, leading-edge, and full of potential.