Short Bio

I was born in December 1975 in a small city on the East coast of Italy and as a young boy in Porto Sant'Elpidio, my main hobby was having fun with friends on the beach. However, that kind of pastime was hard to enjoy all year long for someone living that far from the equator, thus I developed another interest, which is still one of my greatest passions...basketball. My favorite team is Los Angeles Lakers, so when I came to United States for the first time, in the summer of 1992, I was hoping to see some showtime. However, Magic Johnson was already retired and furthermore, being an exchange student in Oklahoma you don't get that many chances to watch the Lakers playing! (Yes, you get it right, I left Italy to spend one year in Enid, Oklahoma....)

Back to Italy, a year later I graduated from high school and right away I enrolled at University of Bologna, which, for who doesn't know that, is a quiet old institution (it is indeed the oldest university, established in 1088 A.D.). Bologna is a great city and if you consider the fact that half of its residents are students, you can image how fun was living there! I took my “laurea” degree in electronic engineering, with a specialization in biomedical engineering, in 2000 and after that I worked for three years as a researcher at the laboratory of medical technology, which is part of the Rizzoli Orthopedic Institutes of Bologna.

In the fall of 2002 I decided that it was time for some adventure, so, thanks to a Fulbright scholarship, I flew to Pittsburgh, where I spent six months as visiting researcher at Carnegie Mellon University. During that period I got a chance to learn something about universities in the US and before leaving the Country, I sent out applications to Ph.D. programs in biomedical engineering.

One year later I was leaving Bologna and Italy to become a student (again!) in Cambridge, enrolled in a joint program between MIT and Harvard University. This time I didn’t come alone, but I decided to share my life with a wonderful girl, my wife Marta, who is also a graduate student. So far I love Boston...even if this city makes me always struggle with the temptation of becoming a Red Sox fan ( MIT physicians strongly suggested to avoid that in exchange for better quality of life !)

Interests

I'm convinced that the books we read, the music we listen to and the movies we like to watch, tell a lot about who we are. Furthermore, I recently read Hornby’s “High Fidelity” and I got into making lists of favorite things! In alphabetical order:

10 best books:

Ask the Dusk (Fante)

A Violent Life (Pasolini)

For Whom the Bell Tolls (Hemingway)

Hunger (Hamsun)

Sexing the Cherry (Winterson)

Sun Also Rises (Hemingway)

The Andromeda Strain (Crichton)

The Brotherhood of the Grape (Fante)

The Brothers Karamazov (Dostoevsky)

The Moon and the Bonfires (Pavese)

10 best CDs:

AC/DC Live (AC/DC)

All’Una e Trentacinque Circa (Vinicio Capossela)

Appetite for Destruction (Guns’n’Roses)

Fold Your Hands Child You Walk Like a Peasant (Belle and Sebastian)

Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness (Smashing Pumpkins)

Ride the Lighting (Metallica)

Rimmel (Francesco de Gregori)

Ok Computer (Radiohead)

The River (Bruce Springsteen)

Vs (Pearl Jam)

10 best movies:

Big Wednesday (John Milius, 1978)

Few Good Men (Rob Reiner, 1992)

First Blood (Ted Kotcheff, 1982)

Hoosiers (David Anspaugh, 1986)

Leaving Las Vegas (Mike Figgis, 1995)

Once Upon a Time in America (Sergio Leone, 1984)

The Best of Youth (Marco Tullio Giordana, 2003)

The Godfather (Francis Ford Coppola, 1972)

The Graduate (Mike Nichols, 1967)

Zabriskie Point (Michelangelo Antonioni,  1970)

Friends

Here is my tribute to my best friends!

Miscellaneous

Interview for RAI International news during the videoconference on the topic "La rivolta della Generazione X", organized by MITALY and Vision. MIT, March 3, 2006. Download videoclip here (Quicktime .MOV, 49 MB).

Featured in the magazine Panorama, as one of the Italians at MIT for the reportage "Our scientists in America". Download PDF here (650 KB).

"Migliore risonanza per le diagnosi". Interviewed by Gianna Milano for the magazine Panorama (n. 22, May 29 2008). Download jpeg here (1 MB) .