Following my passion and interest about paleontology and dinosaur evolution, I first attended the Bachelor courses in Natural Sciences at the University of Bologna (Italy). I graduated with the maximum score of 110/110 summa cum laude, presenting a historical and osteological revision of the beautiful specimen of the hadrosauroid Ouranosaurus nigeriensis Taquet, 1976. After that, the strong desire of knowledge drove me to enrol in the Organismic Biology, Evolution and Paleobiology Master at the Universität Bonn (Germany). I graduated with 1.3 (A), with the first histological analysis of pneumatic bones in saurischian dinosaurs. From October 2016 to September 2017 I have been a researcher at the VUB-Free University of Brussels, working on hadrosaur material with the people of the AMGC Research Group.

In 2010 and 2011 I searched for hadrosaurs fossils in the Pirenei Mountains, together with a crew of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (Spain). In 2015, the hot, dry environment of the Nevada desert conquered my heart, while looking for marine reptiles with prof. Martin P. Sander, my MSc supervisor. In 2017, I partecipated in a private fieldwork in the Jurassic Morrison Formation in Wyoming, USA. 

Disentangling the mysterious biology of extinct animals is extremely fascinating. Behind every single bone lurks a hidden story of muscles, blood and organs, materials that have a very low chance to fossilize. The ability to resurrect organisms no one ever admired, the capacity to recreate muscles, organs and even skin on just naked bones, grew my thirst for paleontological knowledge. A difficult task for which, during my master program, I became knowledgeable of a recently established analytical technique that allows this typology of study: paleohistology.

The aforementioned experience nourished my academic interests regarding the paleobiological reconstruction of herbivorous reptiles, especially hadrosaurs, informally known as duck-billed dinosaurs, and sauropods, the long-necked giants of the Mesozoic Era. In particular, I found the reconstruction of the respiratory and muscular systems in dinosaurs, based on osteological comparisons combined with paleohistological analyses, and dissection of living tetrapods, very engaging.

In my ongoing PhD research, I am studying the phatologies fossilised in herbivorous dinosaurs, especially those within the Cerapoda lineage (ceratopsids and ornithopods).

As far as I am concerned, hadrosaurs are the most intriguing dinosaurs to study. Their patterns of speciation and their bewildering morphological diversity are one of the best examples of evolution in the history of life. The understanding of the complex physiognomy of hadrosaurs’ nasal crest, their internal structure, and their connection with the respiratory system, represents the fascinating conundrum that captivated my interest in dinosaur biology. Hadrosaurs are the best case-studies for pathologies as well, since their skeletons suffered from numerously diseases (unfortunately for them luckily for me!).