At the same time I was studying piano. I started to play thinking of it as a hobby, afterwords I realized how difficult it was to keep both physics and piano.

I started my real physics understanding in the physics department of the Università degli Studi di Pisa. A great school, I loved those tough years!

I graduated with Prof. Elio Fabri and I worked in Regge Calculus, a kind of numerical and geometrical approach to General Relativity. I got my “laurea” in 1999. Elio, I cannot believe I call him by the first name [it's almost a mortal sin in Italy], was such a great undergraduate advisor. It was thanks to him that I started looking for PhD positions outside Italy.

Then I had to choose between joining the army or doing 10 months of civil service. I chose the second one. At the same time I got my MS in piano ("diploma" in Italian) in Livorno at the “Istituto Musicale Pietro Mascagni.” I gave a few public concerts, but nothing special. Bach and Schumann were my favorite piano composers (I played the "Carnaval" by Schumann at my graduation).

The experience in Syracuse, NY, USA

I went to US on the 23rd of July 2001. At that time then my mother Lucia went through a very tough time (remember, I'm Italian...).

I liked the physics department of the Syracuse University since the very beginning. I liked the atmosphere, it was a very nice place where to work. The winters had been quite rigid, though this fact helped me study.

In September 2001 I gave the qualifying exam. That was quite a good time: I was able to skip the first year of classes and immediately started my research.

My research supervisor, Mark Trodden has done an excellent job with me. I soon started to make research with him. One of the best thing Mark gave me was his trust in my possibilities.

When I took my PhD, I felt like a piece of my life terminated. But I will remember a lot of things. First of all my advisor, Mark, with whom I still keep in contact (until he will kick me out of his email-box). He has been such a wonderful guide in my research path.

The experience in Brighton, Sussex, UK

I have stayed in Brighton for two years (2005-2007), as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Sussex. Brighton is a wonderful city: it had everything I like and it has its own character. It did not make me feel sad that I was still far away from Italy. At that time on the 11th of April 2007 I got married with Akiko, a Japanese woman I met in Syracuse during my PhD.

By the way I had some really good Indian food (one of my favourite cuisine) in Brighton. There were a few good restaurants there: send me an email if you want to know something more about it [although my information will be about 15 years old].

The department (Department of Physics and Astronomy of the University of Sussex) I had been working in is very nice. This department has been one of the top choices when I was looking for a post-doc position and the fact that they chose me makes feel a little bit proud, but also extremely lucky!

I liked the people I was working with. Mark Hindmarsh has been such a wonderful physicist to work with. I have to thank him for asking me to go to Brighton and work with him.

The experience in Louvain-la-neuve, Belgium

From 2007 to 2009 I was a postdoc working at the catholic university of Louvain-la-neuve. Belgium is a nice country indeed. Actually people are warm-harted and, in some sense, they are much closer to Italians than British. Belgian food is nice: especially bread, chocolate, moule and of course beer.

The weather is not that great, but the place where I live, Wavre, is really great. I was happy to be there, and to keep myself alive in such a nice place! At that time Akiko gave birth to Anna, my daughter. She was born in Woluwe-Saint-Lambert. Although we live far from Belgium, the fact it is the birth place of our only child makes it a very special place.

Here I met Christophe Ringeval, with whom I have been working in extra-dimensions. He is, like Mark Trodden and Mark Hindmarsh, a fantastic physicist. Christophe has become also a really good friend of mine, and this is really important.

Every day we were used to eat with the group at a sandwich place, and enjoy lunch time discussing about many many things. He is a Linux-guru, although he uses Mandriva, whereas I prefer Ubuntu: this is the source of a continuous exchange of ironic opinions about each other's distribution.

The experience in Tokyo, Japan

From 2009 up to 2011 I worked at the Tokyo University of Science, under a JSPS fellowship [for postdocs], working with Shinji Tsujikawa. I enjoyed a lot Japan for many different reasons. First, I never worked so much and so well as in Japan. I was very happy I was spending two years in Japan so that I could get to know better the culture of the country of my wife, Akiko. The JSPS fellowship is a very convenient one, in terms of salary, possibilities to go to conferences and so on.

In particular my interaction with Shinji had developed into something I have no doubt could be called real friendship. Besides learning a lot of physics with him, I enjoyed talking to him about everything, I mean everything.

We had lunch every day in Kagurazaka, a place famous in Tokyo for the high quality of the restaurants. At lunch time for less than 1000 Yen we could eat very delicious food.

At that time, I was living in Yokohama, and every day I was commuting from Yokohama to Tokyo. It was quite tiring, but I got used to it, and it was a rather peculiar point of view from which I could study Japanese people's everyday interactions. I enjoyed my life in Tokyo.

The experience in Phitsanulok, Thailand

From 2011 up to November 2013, I got a lecturer position at the Institute for Fundamental Physics belonging to Naresuan University, in Phitsanulok, Thailand.

Now this experience was a life-changing for me, under several aspects. But let me talk about it a bit more in detail.

Thailand is a wonderful country, I really mean it. It has a been a place where I have learned how to be a more decent person. Before going to Thailand, I was pretty proud of myself, as I was happy about the experience accumulated up to that point. In particular, after the two years spent in Tokyo, that is after my third postdoc, I was eager to get a faculty position. Even Elio, my undergraduate advisor, was telling me to try my best to get inside a university.

It happened that at the same time I was looking for such a job, prof. Burin Gumjudpai, Burin, told Shinji a new institute in fundamental physics at his university in Thailand was going to open. [I should say that it was only thanks to Burin that institute was opened in Naresuan U.]. It was such a fantastic combination of time. After a short visit, I decided to move to Thailand to continue my career [although some Italian friends of mine were skeptical about my future in physics]. But at that time, I felt so natural for me to go there to become a lecturer, that I was not afraid of anything when I moved to Thailand...

... and what a fantastic choice it was. Thai people showed me their struggles at giving a good education to their children even though for some of them life is not easy [as it was mine instead]. But even then, Thai people were always keeping a smile on their clean and innocent faces. They taught me life can be hard but needs to be lived with courage. Keeping nice and humble to other people... What a "magistra vitae" experience it was.

To become a Thai was genetically impossible, but I tried my very best to dip my habits into Thai culture, to try to get their genuine, simple way of life. I really fell in love with Thailand. So much that time passed so fast... Thailand shaped my mind (and my body too). I was still working with many friends in Japan and with new friends in Thailand. Especially my Japanese friends (Shinji Mukohyama, Misao Sasaki, Shinji Tsujikawa, Takahiro Tanaka) did not forget me and came several times to Thailand to work with me. Real friends can be seen in these circumstances.

As a side note, I loved so much Thai massage, that when I got to know I was chosen as an associate professor at YITP (Kyoto U., Japan) on the 22nd of August 2013, I immediately went to a massage school to become a Thai massage practitioner myself. That corresponded to my last tribute to the warmth of Thai culture. I really need to thank both Burin and God for giving me the chance to be a professor at his institute. Soon after I left Thailand, Naresuan U. gave me a price as "best researcher" for my contributions in physics during my stay in Thailand and the prize was giving me by the Thai princess.

The experience in Kyoto

From the 1st of december 2013 up to now, I have been working at YITP (Kyoto U., Kyoto, Japan). What to say about it? It has been a blessing for me, because I had the chance to work closely with my friends.

On top of that, I have been dipping and soaking myself into the reachness of Japanese culture. It is like getting inside the warm waters of a hot-spring. What will come out of this experience? It is still too early to say... life is happening now.