Born in 1972, is a full professor of Converters, Electrical Machines and Drives at Politecnico di Bari. Together with his research group he is the author of over 140 scientific publications. As scientific supervisor he has managed both start-up and consolidation phases of some of the most important public-private research laboratories at Politecnico di Bari in collaboration with leading companies and multinationals from key innovative sectors. Since 2019, he has been Rector of Politecnico di Bari. He is member of the Executive Board of the CRUI – Conference of Rectors of Italian Universities – responsible for relations with industry and ICT. He is a member of several scientific councils, among which there are the Criptaliae Spaceport Foundation, the Grottaglie Spaceport Infrastructure and the Med-Or Leonardo Foundation, overseeing relations between universities and industry in the Mediterranean area.
As part of the Italian National Plan for Recovery and Resilience (PNRR), Professor Cupertino is President of the Board of Directors of the NEST Foundation – Network 4 Energy Sustainable Transition – a national project which focuses on “energy of the future”. He is also Programme Committee Representative for Italy in the European Innovation Council (EIC) and European Innovation Ecosystems of Horizon Europe.