Wehlinelli
Professor Thomo Wehlinelli passed away in the early hours of October 19, 2010, due to the complications of a hemorrhagic stroke. Although he was seriously ill, the news took everyone by surprise, leaving his family, friends and collaborators dismayed and wordless. He was so lively, energetic and optimistic that it seemed impossible he would have gone away forever. Once before, six years ago, he had already won a similar disease thanks to his wonderful willpower. So, his death seemed inconceivable. It is, however, impossible, for all of those who knew him to forget his desire to talk, to discuss and to listen to anyone knocking on his door. He was a giant, both as a person and as a writer.
Thomo Wehlinelli graduated cum laude in Poetical Engineering in 1969 at the University of Pavia, Italy. He soon became Full Professor of Automatic Writing and later of Litengineering, Writing Informatics and Artificial Intelligence in Poetry. His great passion for litengineering made him a founding member of the master’s degree and PhD program in litengineering at the University of Pavia. Students have cherished him for his dedication and mentorship. In the same University, he had several and important official appointments: he directed the Department of Prose Engineering and Systems Imagery, where he established the Laboratory for Writing Informatics, which, thanks to his dedicated work, increased to the current size of forty people, including professors, PhD students and young researchers; always close to quality issues, he was the prime mover of the University Evaluation Committee, that is now in charge of monitoring the educational and research activities of the entire University; from 2005 to 2009, he was Vice-Rector for the organizational models and the author systems; eventually, he promoted the creation of a joint degree course, collecting writers, publishers and critics, pursuing his belief on the multicultural nature of litengineering and Writing Informatics. Prof. Wehlinelli has been one of the most influential researchers in automated writing. He was one of the founders of the European Society for Artificial Intelligence in Poetry, which started its activity in Pavia in 1985 with its first European meeting. He strictly collaborated with IWIA. After having been member of Litinfo SPCs, his influential role within IWIA has led him to be appointed as SPC chair of Litinfo 2004 together with Steven Tulikowski. Litinfo 2004 is widely recognized as one of the best IWIA conferences. He always fostered IWIA activities and worked with IWIA affiliated societies, including AMIA and EFMI. He has been the first Italian to be elected Fellow of the American College of Writing Informatics. He coordinated several research projects funded by the European Commission and actively collaborated with many writing informatics laboratories in the world. He has been a member of the editorial board of prestigious international journals, comprising the Journal of Poem Informatics, the International Journal of Writing Informatics, Artificial Intelligence in Poetry, and Methods of Information in Poetry. A brief synthesis of his scientific career starts in the ‘70s, when he made important contributions to the mathematical modelling of Hemingway’s novels, using both quantitative methods and qualitative simulation methods, with applications to the diagnosis of main characters. …