Hello 👋 

I am an Assistant Professor at the Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Florence, where I conduct research on Galaxy Evolution and teach Physics, Astronomy, and Data Science.

Before moving to Florence, I was an ESO Fellow at the European Southern Observatory (ESO) in Garching, Munich, and before that, a postdoctoral researcher at the Observatory of Geneva (The Astronomy Department, UNIGE), working in the group of Prof. Daniel Schaerer. In December 2018, I received my PhD in "Astronomy, Astrophysics and Space Science", a joint research program between Sapienza University of Rome, University of Tor Vergata and INAF/OAR, under the supervision of Prof. Raffaella Schneider, with a thesis on "The Baryon Cycle driving Galaxy Evolution". I spent part of my PhD at the Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge, working in the group of Prof. Roberto Maiolino.

If you want to know more about my academic bio, please have a look at my CV.

Just read below for an overview of my research interests and other things I enjoy doing.

My research in a nutshell

I use observational data from the most powerful telescopes (eg., ALMA, VLT/MUSE, HST, JWST), and deep learning methods, to explore several subjects related to the Evolution of Galaxies across Cosmic Time. I have been deeply involved in the ambitious ALPINE project, an ALMA Large Program designed to study the gas and dust properties in the interstellar medium (ISM) of high-z galaxies.

Also, I am involved in the development and application of machine learning and computer vision models in other scientific areas (e.g., medical imaging, cultural heritage, and data-sonification).

Driven by curiosity, I like to keep a broad and diverse range of research interests. They include:

• star formation-driven outflows and circumgalactic metal-enrichment in the early Universe;

• AGN-feedback and its impact on circumgalactic scales; 

• Lyman-alpha Nebulae around quasars;

• formation mechanisms of the "hot dust-obscured galaxies" (Hot-DOGs);

• chemical evolution of galaxies - dust formation/destruction in the ISM;

• fundamental scaling relations and the underlying baryon cycle physics.

My views on these topics are discussed in some published/submitted papers. If you are interested, please find a list here.

About me

Besides astrophysics, I have several other passions and interests, like:

• Traveling and getting in touch with new cultures. The more adventurous the trip is, the more I enjoy it.

• Cinematography. I just love watching movies and studying the "history of cinema". At some point, during high school, I wanted to become a film director...

• Sport. I enjoy watching and playing all kinds of sports, especially team sports.

• Photography. I enjoy watching old photos by legendary photographers, like for instance "The Eye of the Century" Henri Cartier-Bresson, and taking pictures with my mirrorless camera. 

• Human-machine interaction through computer vision. I am deeply fascinated by computer vision, an active branch of AI that focuses on the ability of computers to "see, understand, take inputs and act", opening new fascinating possibilities for humans to interact with intelligent machines. I (co-)developed several pipelines that use hand- and/or eye-tracking algorithms to paint, write, and make sounds!  (see "Computer Vision Projects" page).