I was born in GrossetoLink opens in a new window, a small Italian town in Southern Tuscany, close to the coastline of the Tyrrhenian Sea. Long stretches of dry weather and beautiful dark skies characterised my adolescence, certainly stimulating my innate interests in the Universe.

After graduating from a science-oriented high school I moved to PisaLink opens in a new window, where I attended University and I got a MSc degree in Astrophysics with a thesis on the dynamical stability of habitable zones around stars with known exoplanets.

Intrigued by the rapidly-growing field of exoplanets and by the quest for an Earth analog, I decided to orient my postgraduate research towards exoplanets and their atmospheres, and in 2010 I joined the group of Ignas Snellen at Leiden ObservatoryLink opens in a new window. While sharpening my observational skills at various telescope facilities, I also pioneered a novel technique for studying the atmospheres of exoplanets at high spectral resolution. When I started my PhD, this method had just obtained the first successful results after more than a decade of inconclusive attempts. The milestones achieved during my post-graduate studies led to the award of a NASA Hubble FellowshipLink opens in a new window, which I held at the University of Colorado BoulderLink opens in a new window between 2014 and 2017.

In the Fall of 2017 I joined the Astronomy and AstrophysicsLink opens in a new window group of the University of Warwick as an Assistant Professor. I am currently pushing the limits of high-dispersion observations towards smaller and cooler planets, and defining analysis technique to combine them with space-based low-resolution observations. This will allow us in the near future to become sensitive to the atmospheres of terrestrial exoplanets orbiting the habitable zones of small stars.

Short CV (Full version available upon request)

• 2017-now - Assistant Professor, University of Warwick
• 2014-2017 - NASA Hubble Fellow, CU Boulder
• 2014 - PhD, Leiden University, cum laude
• 2009 - Laurea Specialistica in Astrophysics, Pisa University, 110/110 cum laude
• 2006 - Laurea Triennale in Physics, Pisa University, 110/110
• 2002 - Diploma (Liceo Scientifico), 100/100