Rosaria Conte is a cognitive scientist (current president of AISC, the Italian Association of Cognitive Science) with a special interest for the study of positive social action (altruism, cooperation and social norms) and complex social systems. She coordinates a Laboratory of Agent Based Social Simulation (LABSS) at the ISTC (Institute for Cognitive Science and Technology) of the Italian Research Council, but teaches also at the University of Siena.

She contributed to launch the field of social simulation in Europe by (co-)organizing scientific events, co-editing collective volumes and coordinating a EU-funded Special Interest Group on Agent-based Social Simulation. She has been member of several European research projects and Networks of Excellence about agents, multi-agent systems, and social simulation. The research projects she is currently coordinating (both at the national and international level) are social simulation projects.  

Finally, most of her scientific articles and books concern how model cognitive social agents for agent-based simulation. Quite convinced that agent based simulation represents one of the most fascinating challenges and opportunities for the development of the social sciences, she also believes that much is still to be done to enhance the exploratory and explanatory potential of social simulation --- in particular in terms of agent modeling and designing, integration among different social and behavioral disciplines, and confrontation among different scientific traditions - and that ESSA can decisively contribute to all of these tasks, to the benefit of the European scientific competitiveness and of social simulation itself.