BIOGRAPHY

I was born in 1988 in Catania, Italy, a city situated in Sicily between the volcano Etna and the wonderful beaches of the Jonian Sea. I obtained my BSc in Economics at the University of Catania in 2009, and my MSc in Economics and Social Sciences at Bocconi University, Milan, in 2012. I then moved to Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh PA, to study Statistics and its applications to Astronomy (with professors Larry Wasserman and Christopher Genovese) and Neuroscience (with my advisers, professors Rob Kass and Valérie Ventura). In 2013 I obtained my MSc in Statistics, and in August 2017 defended my Ph.D. thesis entitled "Statistical inference about functional connectivity from multi-neuron recordings" where I analyze data from macaque visual cortex recorded by Dr. Matthew Smith, University of Pittsburgh. In September 2017 I started my post-doc research in Statistics at Rice University.

My post-doctoral research is funded by the prestigious Rice Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship. My mentors are Associate Professor Genevera Allen (Departments of Statistics and Electrical and Computer Engineering) and Assistant Professor Xaq Pitkow (Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering). My research focuses on high-dimensional statistical inference and computational neuroscience, in particular, the study of the connectivity of thousands of neurons to explain brain's functions and to help engineers to design more effective prosthetic devices, such as bionic eyes.

Besides my studies in Statistics, playing the piano and composing music have always been my great passions that I will never give up. I also like to cook several Italian dishes.