DATA (in) MIND

I am a Research Scientist & Engineer specialized in ML applications for healthcare and space science.

In 2021 I joined the Medical Images group of the Health Intelligence team at Microsoft Research – Cambridge.  Here I am working on deep learning applied to histopathology images for the prediction of genetic mutation and the development of personalized cancer therapies. Previous to MSR, I worked at IQVIA where I developed machine learning applications based on electronic health records for the diagnosis of rare diseases.

Since 2019 I am part of the Frontier Development Lab, an applied AI research accelerator that works in partnership with NASA, ESA and several tech companies, on a variety of projects related to space missions. As part of FDL I research how AI can enhance the capabilities of space remote-sensing instruments  (those curious to know more can look here and here).

Spectacular Rayleigh scattering effect over my street in London

Previous to my move in UK,  I worked as Postdoctoral Researcher at the Centre du Physique Théorique of Marseille, in the sunny south of France. In my research I used Bayesian statistics and data from the universe to understand how gravity works on cosmological scales.

One of my favorite spots in Marseille (in its average windy condition)

In January 2015 I obtained my Phd in Astrophysics from the University of Rome La Sapienza (Italy). In my thesis I exploited data from the Cosmic Microwave Background, collected by the ESA-NASA satellite experiment Planck, to infer new insights about the physical forces that drive the evolution of the universe (gravity, dark matter and dark energy).

My beloved city of Rome as seen from the International Space Station

During my PhD I had the luck to be a visiting researcher in two wonderful labs. In 2014 I won a Fellowship to develop my research project at the Institute of Gravitation and Cosmology of the University of Portsmouth (UK), a leading institute in the cosmology field with over 70 people working on measuring and interpreting the universe. In 2012 I spent a semester at the University of California, Irvine (USA) to work on an exciting project about spectroscopic data from galaxies collected by the HERSCHEL Observatory.

Orange County in Southern California, home for several months during my PhD

In a previous life, I grew up in the medieval town of Viterbo, in central Italy, where I spent my days going horseback riding and playing in theatre (when not studying Physics and Math ;)).