I earned the master degree in chemistry at the University of Padova in 1996 with thesis project “Theoretical models to analyze quasielastic neutron scattering experiments” supervised by Prof. Pier Luigi Nordio. After that, for six months I was a post-degree researcher at the School of Chemistry of the University of Bristol (UK) with Prof. Robert M. Richardson; in that occasion I developed theoretical tools to analyse neutron scattering data on columnar liquid crystals. Then I did the doctorate in Chemical Sciences (1997-1999) at the University of Padova; the project, entitled “Molecular motions and collective dynamics in nematic and smectic liquid crystalline phases”, was developed in the Theoretical Chemistry Group under the supervision of Prof. Pier Luigi Nordio and Prof. Giorgio J. Moro. From 2000 to 2002 I was a post-doc at the Physical Chemistry Institute of the Freiburg University (Germany) in the Magnetic Resonances Group coordinated by Prof. Gerd Kothe; the topic was investigating how the slow order director fluctuations in liquid crystals and biomembranes affect the NMR spectra of dissolved probes, and how to determine the viscolelastic properties of such materials from the analysis of the spin relaxation. From 2002 to 2006 I was a post-doc at the Department of Chemical Sciences of the University of Padova with a project entitled “Order director fluctuations in liquid crystals and membranes: modeling and theoretical description of the spectroscopic abservables” supervised by Prof. Giorgio J. Moro. As a whole, such early research activity was mainly focused on molecular and collective stochastic dynamics in condensed fluid phases and soft matter, and on their spectroscopic characterization. Since 2006 I am assistant professor at the Department of Chemical Sciences of the Padova University. My research interests moved on stochastic thermodynamics, perturbation theory of fluctuating systems, and chemical kinetics (although, occasionally, I still like to deal with dynamics in soft matter). I was/am also involved in several teaching activities for the degree courses of Chemistry, Industrial Chemistry, Science and Technologies for the Environment, and for the Doctorate in Molecular Sciences as well. I supervised tens of students in their final thesis project (names and thesis titles can be found in my webpage). To date (May 2020), I am author/co-authors of 55 publications in international journals covering chemistry, physics, mathematical physics and applied mathematics; please see my webpage for the updated list.
My current research activity concerns the following topics:
- Stochastic thermodynamics (work fluctuation theorems and their application to the construction of free energy landscapes)
- Response of fluctuating systems under perturbation
- Mass-action chemical kinetics (dimensionality reduction and formal properties of the rate equations)
- Stochastic chemical kinetics
- Interpretation of relaxation phenomena in magnetic resonance experiments
- Molecular and collective stochastic dynamics in condensed fluid phases and soft matter (only occasionally)