About
Here you can find my CV.
I joined the Gothenburg Research Infrastructure in Digital Humanities (GRIDH) at the University of Gothenburg in November 2022, so I am relatively fresh in the field. I came with tremendous passion, but lots of ignorance in this specific domain - hired for my engineer skills more than for my interests. From 2015 to 2023, I developed my academic career in a direction that to this day I love and follow, becoming an evolutionary biologist. The academic system chewed me properly and left a long-lasting impression - but I was lucky enough to end in a position that I love.
Some history
I did my PhD at the University of Bern, working in the Interfaculty Bioinformatics Unit and the Computational and Molecular Population Genetics lab, under the supervision of Dr. Stephan Peischl and Prof. Laurent Excoffier. My research there focused on processes of fast adaptation in a spatially explicit context, in particular in populations facing harsh environmental changes. In such situation, the establishment of new mutations is an important aspect in preventing extinction. The survival of an endangered population following the establishment of a beneficial mutation takes the name of “evolutionary rescue”.
After finishing my PhD in 2019, I did a postdoc in the Bradburd Lab at Michigan State University, where I worked on statistical methods to infer population parameters from genetic data collected in a spatially explicit environment. In 2021, I arrived in Scandinavia as a postdoc in marine evolutionary biology in the Rafajlović Evolution Modelling Group at the University of Gothenburg. There, I studied the effects of bottlenecks and allelic surfing during species’ range shifts and expansions. In particular I combined mathematical models and simulations with empirical spatially resolved genetic and ecological data from marine species in the Baltic Sea.
Me today
I am still exploring my academic taste in my new position as research engineer in digital humanities. Ever since my high school studies in Latin and Ancient Greek I have nurtured my passion for history, philosophy, politics and all sorts of different arts. I am so grateful to be able to pursue these interests professionally, as I am to have been able to pursue my naturalistic interests in the last decade.
I have a keen interest in the technical side of the scientific endeavour: that is why in my research I always take time to develop the right tools for different needs. In particular, these tools can be software, algorithms or mathematical and statistical models. This interest unites with the pledge for reproducible science: too often, researchers publish scripts pertaining to a new method that cannot readily be tested and reproduced by other scientists. This is due to a lack of good practices in programming, and also the lack of resources to produce and maintain an open source software. I think that we should enter a new paradigm where we give equal recognition to people who invent new methods and people who create new software. As a community, we should also create resources for open source software. I also recently became the chair for the Board of the Nordic Research Software Engineers association, a non-profit organization that aims to bringing together research software engineers and related positions in the Nordic countries in order to establish a network focused on the creation of sustainable software for research.
I am also passionate about teaching: it is the duty of any person with knowledge to try and pass it to other people, and in particular to the new generations. That is why I am always happy to pursue projects of scientific dissemination.
In my free time I like to practice endurance sports and to try out ever new hobbies. In the past, among other things, I studied the art of magic (intended as illusion, not as dark magic), acting in theater, solving rubik’s cubes fast, singing in choirs, playing piano and guitar, played and refereed tchoukball… Currently, I’m taking a serious interest in visual astronomy.
Short CV
2022 – present: Research engineer in digital humanities at University of Gothenburg
2021 – 2022: Postdoc in marine evolutionary biology at University of Gothenburg
2019 – 2020: Postdoc in evolutionary biology Michigan State University
2015 – 2019: PhD studies in population genetics at Universität Bern
2012 – 2014: MSc in theoretical physics at Université de Genève
2009 – 2012: BSc in physics at Université de Genève