The noblest pleasure is the joy of understanding.
Leonardo Da Vinci
Experimental physicist graduated from the University of Catania, Doctor in physics and biophysics from the University of Dundee, and space pirate currently based on planet earth.
I was part of the PHOQUS project, working with optical tweezers for biological applications. When I am not trying to evolve optical tweezers into light-sabers, I spend my time to science communication and illustration. I made an illustrated book combining the two things, and you can buy it here.
Sometime along the way, I lived in Belgium, tasting a different beer every week while studying photovoltaics in imec, and in Germany, adding Spätzle to the list of non-Italian spaghetti-shaped food I like and making stronger optical tweezers.
I am a member of a bunch of associations, mainly professional physics ones and some a little bit more fun, like the Marie Curie Alumni Association, of which I am a proud Vice-Chair.
What is this blog about?
If I was able to answer this question, I wouldn’t have started this blog. This blog is mostly a useful exercise to understand where I am going.
I have a degree in physics. I did research in cellular biology. Times to times, I did some chemistry. Shortly, I am in great discomfort when people ask me what I do.
“Do you have in mind the idea of the scientist in the beginning of 19th century? The ones that just study what they care, no matter what they were graduated in? Well, that’s me. But I am a wee bit clumsier”
Some implicit consequences of my reply are that I travel a lot, I get my hands dirty with lots of different sciences, and most of the time, of course, I am lost. But the good side of being lost is that you probably see places that others fear to reach.
Here I am to share my journey with you, with a suitcase almost always ready and the desire of learning something new every day. Because sharing, mixing, contaminating, is the new old way of doing science. The only way to make my mind clear and discover who I am and where really I am going. And more importantly, it is the only way I that I want to do science.