I am a Senior Editor for the open-access journal Nature Communications. As part of the Genetics, Ecology, Evolution and Zoology team, I handle manuscripts on ecology, conservation biology, and environmental sustainability.
Before becoming a full-time Editor, I got my hands dirty (often literally) in ecological research on three continents. Until summer 2018 I was a postdoctoral researcher in Diana Wall's lab at Colorado State University, USA. I am an alumnus of University College Dublin and Wageningen University (PhD degree in Soil Ecology), University of Aberdeen (Master of Research in Ecology and Environmental Sustainability), and Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II (bachelor's and master's degrees in Scienze della Natura). Besides the various offices and laboratories, my work places included a puffin-infested island in the North Sea, the North American short-grass steppe, tulip-bordered fields below the sea level, a ravine ending on one of the most spectacular stretches of coast in the Mediterranean, and the out-of-this-world McMurdo Dry Valleys of Antarctica. To this day, a polluted urban stream in the metropolitan area of Naples remains my most unlikely and dangerous fieldwork location.
For an up-to-date list of publications, please go here.
Besides ecology, I have a broad interest in almost all branches of science (but I don't claim expertise in any of them!). I enjoy writing stories, informing myself on human history, and hiking near the sea and up the mountains and anywhere in between.
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To pursue my scientific ambitions, in 2010 I left my home town Naples, Italy for Aberdeen, Scotland. I took a Master of Research in Ecology & Environmental Sustainability, thanks to which I acquired a comprehensive background in ecological theory and hands-on experience in methods, data analysis, and academic writing. From 2011 to 2015 I did a PhD project at Wageningen University and University College Dublin, where I studied the functional ecology of a humble yet super-important creature: earthworms. From 2015 to 2018 I was a postdoc at Colorado State University , where I led research on the effects of climate change on soil fauna and animal-microbial interactions in Antarctica, and on the effects of mammalian herbivores on soil communities, and contributed to a large experiment on interactive effects of water availability and root herbivores on grassland primary productivity. In spring 2019 I joined Nature Communications and moved to Berlin.
I was especially interested in soil fauna and the way soil biological communities respond to human-driven global change. Some of the research questions I tackled include how Antarctic invertebrates respond to climate change, what happens to animals below the ground when there are herbivores above the ground, and whether I can function as a scientist and a human being without any caffeine for a month. The answer to the latter is, surprisingly, yes.
Through my research I sought to develop testable mechanistic hypotheses to make sense of observed patterns and predict future trends.The approaches I used include observational studies, controlled experiments, and syntheses of previous findings. I am especially keen on trying to link species and community data to functions, for instance using stable isotope tracers to track carbon and nitrogen flow, or body size distribution as a community-wide trait metric.
Before becoming a full-time Editor, I got my hands dirty (often literally) in ecological research on three continents. Until summer 2018 I was a postdoctoral researcher in Diana Wall's lab at Colorado State University, USA. I am an alumnus of University College Dublin and Wageningen University (PhD degree in Soil Ecology), University of Aberdeen (Master of Research in Ecology and Environmental Sustainability), and Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II (bachelor's and master's degrees in Scienze della Natura). Besides the various offices and laboratories, my work places included a puffin-infested island in the North Sea, the North American short-grass steppe, tulip-bordered fields below the sea level, a ravine ending on one of the most spectacular stretches of coast in the Mediterranean, and the out-of-this-world McMurdo Dry Valleys of Antarctica. To this day, a polluted urban stream in the metropolitan area of Naples remains my most unlikely and dangerous fieldwork location.
For an up-to-date list of publications, please go here.
Besides ecology, I have a broad interest in almost all branches of science (but I don't claim expertise in any of them!). I enjoy writing stories, informing myself on human history, and hiking near the sea and up the mountains and anywhere in between.
***
To pursue my scientific ambitions, in 2010 I left my home town Naples, Italy for Aberdeen, Scotland. I took a Master of Research in Ecology & Environmental Sustainability, thanks to which I acquired a comprehensive background in ecological theory and hands-on experience in methods, data analysis, and academic writing. From 2011 to 2015 I did a PhD project at Wageningen University and University College Dublin, where I studied the functional ecology of a humble yet super-important creature: earthworms. From 2015 to 2018 I was a postdoc at Colorado State University , where I led research on the effects of climate change on soil fauna and animal-microbial interactions in Antarctica, and on the effects of mammalian herbivores on soil communities, and contributed to a large experiment on interactive effects of water availability and root herbivores on grassland primary productivity. In spring 2019 I joined Nature Communications and moved to Berlin.
I was especially interested in soil fauna and the way soil biological communities respond to human-driven global change. Some of the research questions I tackled include how Antarctic invertebrates respond to climate change, what happens to animals below the ground when there are herbivores above the ground, and whether I can function as a scientist and a human being without any caffeine for a month. The answer to the latter is, surprisingly, yes.
Through my research I sought to develop testable mechanistic hypotheses to make sense of observed patterns and predict future trends.The approaches I used include observational studies, controlled experiments, and syntheses of previous findings. I am especially keen on trying to link species and community data to functions, for instance using stable isotope tracers to track carbon and nitrogen flow, or body size distribution as a community-wide trait metric.