Associate Professor, Director of the Developmental Psychobiology Laboratory (dpb lab)

Education and roles. I am a psychologist, psychotherapist and researcher in developmental psychobiology at the University of Pavia.

I received MSc in Clinical Psychology in 2008 and PhD in Psychology in 2016 at the Catholic University in Milan. From 2008 to 2019 I carried out clinical and research tasks at the 0-3 Center of the IRCCS E. Medea Scientific Institute (Bosisio Parini, Lecco). I obtained the specialty in psychodynamic psychotherapy in 2016 at SIPRe (Milano). In November 2019 I was appointed senior researcher at the IRCCS Mondino Foundation. Since October 2023 I have been Associate Professor at the Department of the Nervous System and Behavior (University of Pavia).

I am head of the Developmental Psychobiology Lab (www.devpsychobiology.com) at University of Pavia and IRCCS Fondazione Mondino. Research overview. In my research I integrate methods from behavioral science, infant research, neuroendocrinology, epigenetics, neuroscience to explore how what happens between us - human relationships – contributes to shape what happens inside of us - neurobiological connections that make us who we are. I am especially interested in the early human connections across the first 1000 days in conditions of typical and atypical development (e.g., preterm birth, sensory deficit, neurodevelopmental disorders).

Productivity. I authored more than 150 papers in international scientific journals (h-index > 30, Scopus). I serve as Editor in Chief for Frontiers in Pediatric Psychology, Associate Editor for Infant Behavior and Development. I published four books: Developmental Human Behavioral Epigenetics (Elsevier, 2020), Psicobiologia dello Sviluppo (Carocci, 2021), Family-Centered Care in Childhood Disability (Springer, 2023), Psychobiological Footprints through Human Development: How Our Experiences Shape Who We Are (Routledge, 2024).