BIOGRAPHY

An Academic’s Story

I grew up in northern Italy in a town called Voghera near Pavia and Milan. I have always been fascinated by science and the unknown and growing up I was obsessed with the Space shuttle missions. As a kid I loved math and thought it was fun. I am the first person in my family to attend college and graduate school. I studied Earth Sciences at the University of Pavia (one of the oldest Universities in Italy). After receiving my undergraduate and MS degree from the University of Pavia I moved to Amsterdam to pursue my PhD at the Vrije University. After receiving my PhD in 2002 I started a short post doc and then moved to Germany in 2003 to start my Humboldt research fellowship at the University of Potsdam. In 2007 I moved to the USA to start my first tenure-track Assistant Professor job at the University of Wyoming. In 2010 I moved to the UA, Department of Geosciences, my current home.