Biography
I’m a postdoctoral researcher at the Dèpartement d’Astrophysique of the CEA Paris-Saclay. My research mainly focuses on the evolution of galaxies, with the main goal of understanding how these objects formed after the Big Bang and how they evolved into the celestial objects we observe in our current Universe. For my research, I use some of the most advanced telescopes ever built by the humakind, such as the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), the Atacama Large (sub)Millimetre Array (ALMA), and the Euclid satellite.
My “Big Questions”
Every scientist has his own “big questions” he would like to answer some day. These are mine:
1. Why do galaxies die?
The main process responsible for the mass growth of galaxies is the star formation. When we look at the overall distribution of galaxies, we can see that most of these objects are grouped into two main families: one characterized by blue colors, active star formation, and disky morphologies, and another with red colors, negligible star formation, and spheroidal shapes. The limited number of galaxies found in between these populations means that there is a quite fast process driving the evolution from one family to another. This process must include the stop of the star formation (the so-called “quenching”) and the morphological transformation from a disky structure into a spheroidal one. In my research, I try to understand why these phenomena take place, what is the relation between them, and how they are related to the local environment of galaxies. For this line of research, I mainly work with the data from the Euclid satellite.
2. What kind of galaxies are missed by our telescopes?
Most of our knowledge of the Universe is based on the data that we receive from our telescopes, most of which are observing at optical wavelengths. Clearly, no instrument is able to observe all the galaxies in the Universe: some of them will always be too faint to be detected. Normally, astronomers account for these faint sources in a statistical way, simply assuming that fainter galaxies are less massive (i.e. with less luminous stars inside them). In my research, I try to test this hypothesis by collecting and analysing large samples of galaxies that are invisibile in the optical because of interstellar dust, but still emitting at longer wavelengths. The most astonishing result about these “dark galaxies” is that they are definetly more massive and star-forming than what we might expect from their optical light! For this line of research, I manly work with the data from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and the Atacama Large (sub)Millimetre Array (ALMA)
3. What role can artificial intelligence play in astronomical research?
For centuries, astronomical research has been based on the (few) data collectable with our eyes and with telescopes. The advent of large sky surveys such as those performed with Euclid or the Vera Rubin Observatory are going to challenge our ability of analyse the huge amount of data that they will produce. In this scenario, simply relying on “old-school” statistical analysis is not enough: we need to involve in our analysis new techniques such as machine learning algorithms. In my research, I try to understand which of these techniques (in most cases developed for other purposes) can be applied to astronomical research.
My Academic Path and my CV
An updated version of my CV is available here. (last update June 2025)
I graduated at the University of Naples (Italy) in 2021. Both my BSc and MSc theses focused on the application of machine learning algorithms to the detection and modelling of strong gravitational lenses in wide sky surveys (both studies were published later, see the next sections). These works were carried out under the supervisions of Dr. Crescenzo Tortora and Prof. Giovanni Covone.
After my under-grad studies, I moved to the University of Bologna (Italy) for my PhD, that I was awarded in 2025. During the three years of my PhD, I worked under the supervision of Dr. Margherita Talia on the characterization of “near-infrared dark galaxies” in the COSMOS field.
During my PhD, I also had the chance of spending a semester visiting the University of Texas at Austin (US), to work under the supervision of Dr. Cailtin Casey on the characterization of dusty galaxies with the data from the James Webb Space Telescope.
Right after getting my PhD, I moved to Paris where I am currently working as a postdoctoral researcher on the scientific exploitation of the data from the Euclid satellite for galaxy evolution studies.
Scientific publications
Since the start of my academic career, I led 6 research project resulting in first-author articles published in peer-reviewed journals. I also contributed to other ~20 studies as a co-author. A complete and updated list of my scientific publications can be found in my CV and at this ADS link
Extra
Some times my work gets out of the astronomical community. Here some fun stuff I was involved in the last years:
– A YouTube interview for the American Astronomical Society presenting my paper on “Not-so-little Red Dots”;
– A press release (in Italian) for the Italian Institute for Astrophysics (INAF) about the automatic analysis of gravitational lenses with machine learning.