Bio

I was born in Ferrara (Italy) in 1988; my earliest memories are set between my father’s office and the big shared garden outside our apartment block. While other kids were in kindergarten, I remember using early versions of Windows (3.0 and 3.1), and figuring out how to open Paintbrush to make digital drawings, long before I could even write. I consider myself a digital native instead of a digital immigrant — not someone who adapted to technology later, but someone who had been growing with it from the very beginning.

At the age of eight, I discovered a deep fascination with archaeology. Since then I knew then that I wanted to work with ancient things, green things, and computers — and that blend has defined my path ever since. As a teenager, I taught myself graphic and web design, skills that would later play an important role in my work.

I earned both my bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Quaternary, Prehistory, and Archaeology at the University of Ferrara, with both theses focusing on plants in archaeological contexts. After graduation, I spent three years working in community archaeology (the Terramara of Pilastri) and taking on projects at the crossroads of visual communication and cultural heritage.

Seeking to expand my scientific foundation, I began a second master’s in Biodiversity and Evolution at the University of Bologna, with a focus on botany. During this time, I studied at the University of León in Spain through a 10-months Erasmus+ scholarship. Although I eventually moved in a different direction before completing the program, the experience significantly honed my data science skills.

In 2020, I became an Early Stage Researcher for the EU-funded ERA Chair “Mnemosyne” project at the Cyprus University of Technology, working on Semantic Data Modelling for Digital Cultural Heritage — a role that brought together my interests in archaeology, technology, and data.

In 2021, I was awarded a Ph.D. position and scholarship funded by Science Foundation Ireland’s Centre for Research Training in Digitally-Enhanced Reality (d-real) at University College Dublin. Within this context, my work explores the intersection of heritage data practices and artificial intelligence; I am currently in the final stages of my dissertation write-up, and I have recently relocated to the UK.