Associate Professor

After graduating in Biological Sciences in Bari, I obtained a doctorate in Neuroscience from the Ruhr-Universität Bochum (Germany) thanks to a Marie Curie Early-Stage Training grant. My postdoctoral training at the SISSA of Trieste focused on cognitive neuroscience. I later won a researcher competition in Psychiatry at the University of Bari (UNIBA), moving from neuroimaging to functional genomics to study the neural basis of cognitive and clinical variability, with a focus on schizophrenia.
In 2018 I won a Marie Curie Global Fellowship to do my research at the Lieber Institute for Brain Development (USA), with return to Italy co-financed by the MUR. Since 2021 I have been an associate professor in Cognitive Neuroscience at UNIBA, Investigator at LIBD since 2022, and Associate Professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
My research explores how genes, environment and experience shape individual variability, integrating levels biologics from cells to circuits and behavior to understand cognitive functions, the risk of psychosis, the schizophrenia and mood disorders. They are PI or Co-PI in national and international projects on neuroscience, genetics behavioral, neuroimaging and AI for mental health. I have received numerous awards, including Research Excellence Award (SIRS, 2025), and held over 40 invited presentations in Europe and the USA (e.g. NeuroSpin, Icahn School of
Medicine, University of Zurich). I am a regular reviewer for over 70 journals and for funding agencies in the EU, USA,
Canada and New Zealand. From 2013 to today I have supervised over 40 doctoral students and postdocs, many of whom have continued his academic career as a university professor, including eight award and recognition winners prestige.