Lab members

I graduated from The University of Edinburgh with a degree in Computer Science & Physics, followed by an MSc in Advanced Computing at Imperial College London. I joined the lab in January 2015 under a BBSRC sponsorship. My project will be focused on decision making and sleep in Drosophila flies.

I joined the lab in October 2013 by starting a 1+3year BBSRC funded PhD. I am working on some aspects of the interaction between sleep deprivation and memory. In parallel, I am developing software tools to characterise subtle behaviours in fruit fly. I am particularity interested in using computer programming and mathematics as tools to elucidate biological questions. I am also an open-source developer and an open-access advocate.

I joined the lab as a PhD student to work on the molecular mechanisms governing sleep in the Drosophila model. My background is a sweet succession of Philosophy (esp. Philosophy of Mind and Analytical Philosophy) and Neuroscience (esp. Systems and Theoretical Neuroscience).

I have been a post-doc in the lab since February 2015 and am studying the genes regulating sleep in Drosophila. Prior to this, I completed an undergraduate degree in Zoology and an MRes in Medical and Molecular Biosciences, both at Newcastle University. I then moved to Paris and worked in the lab of Prof. Frederic Marion-Poll in Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), where I completed my PhD in Neurobiology. More specifically, I studied taste interactions and the neural pathways underpinning feeding behaviour in fruit flies.

I joined the lab in February 2015 as a postdoc with an EMBO Long-Term Fellowship, and the main subject of the project is to study the genetics behind sleep. I am motivated to learn about animal behaviour, and I believe that Drosophila is an ideal organism to this goal. As a PhD student at Fernanda Ceriani’s lab and then as a postdoc in Marcelo Yanovsky’s lab, both in Buenos Aires, I have been focused on the circadian clock, and how time is set and keep in the brain of the fly. Now I plan to get into the main clock controlled behaviour, sleep.

I was born in 1977 in Turin, Italy. From 1996 to 2001 I studied Medical Biotechnology at University of Turin, in Italy. After graduating, I moved at the IMP in Vienna (Austria) where I worked as a graduate student in Barry Dickson‘s laboratory, studying the development of the nervous system in the embryo of Drosophila melanogaster (2002-2006). From September 2006 to July 2009, I was a post-doc in the laboratory for research on sleep and consciousness directed by Chiara Cirelli and Giulio Tononi. In October 2010 I started my own group at Imperial College in London, first as Junior Research Fellow and, since October 2012, as Lecturer in Systems Neurobiology. [ more ]