Profile
Abstract
My main research interests lie in the evolutionary processes that shape the distribution of behavior and cognition in animals, with a particular focus on primates and ungulates. I am currently working on the complexity and ontogeny of primate communication, and on the cross-cultural developmental study of children’s attitudes toward animals. I am also interested in ecology and conservation, with several international collaborations and a field site in Sulawesi (Macaca Maura Project), and I maintain a secret but intense love for psycholinguistics.
Professional career
- since 06/2021
Post-doc researcher at the EVA-MPI, working with Prof. Katja Liebal on the development of gestural communication. - 03/2020 - 06/2021
Post-doc researcher at the University of Leipzig (until 31.01.2021) and at the Department of Human Behavior, Ecology and Culture at the Primatology Department at the EVA-MPI, Leipzig, with several research projects spanning from ungulate cognition to psycholinguistics and wild moor macaque socio-ecology and cognition. My teaching duties include lectures and seminars on primate cognition, methods in primatology, and related topics. - 11/2015 - 02/2020
Post-doc researcher at the University of Leipzig (until 23.06.2019) and at the Primatology Department at the EVA-MPI, mainly working on inter-individual and inter-specific differences in innovation in wild and captive primates, and other species. - 10/2013 - 10/2015
Post-doc guest researcher at the Department of Developmental and Comparative Psychology at the EVA-MPI, Leipzig, and part-time research assistant at the Psychology Department at the Bern University, Switzerland, mainly working on developmental and comparative psychology. Teaching duties have included lectures and seminars. - 12/2010 - 04/2014
Alexander von Humboldt Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the EVA-MPI in Leipzig, Germany, with a project on primate cooperative behaviour and inhibition, and several side projects in comparative cognition and developmental psychology. - 04/2009 - 11/2010
Implementation of different projects and data collection, including studies on comparative cognition and psycholinguistics. - 09/2001 - 08/2005
Data collection and analysis on female mate choice in captive primates (University of Utrecht, Netherlands); field work on wild spider monkeys in Punta Laguna, Mexico (University La Sapienza, Italy); data collection and analysis of different cognitive skills in captive primates (University La Sapienza, Italy, ISTC-CNR Primate Centre, Italy, and EVA-MPI, Leipzig, Germany).
Education
- 09/2005 - 03/2009
PhD in Behavioural Cognition, at the Liverpool John Moores University, UK, and in collaboration with the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (EVA-MPI) in Leipzig, Germany. Dissertation thesis: “Inhibitory control and other cognitive abilities critical to fission-fusion dynamics in primates”. - 09/2005 - 09/2008
Practice and State examination as a lawyer admitted to practice law at the Lawyer Order “Ordine degli Avvocati di Roma”, Rome, Italy. - 09/2001 - 09/2005
Bachelor + Master degree in Law, 102/110 (first equivalent), at the University “Tor Vergata”, Rome, Italy. Dissertation thesis: “Labor rights in theory and in practice: the study case of Mexican maquiladoras”. - 09/1997 - 02/2002
Bachelor + Master degree in Natural Sciences, 110/110 cum laude (first equivalent), at the University “La Sapienza”, Rome, Italy. Dissertation thesis: “Affiliative behavior as sexual strategy in Macaca fascicularis”.
The main focus of my research currently includes the following topics, on which I am working together with several other researchers and students:
- Primate gestural communication
- Mother-infant relationship in different primate species
- The socio-ecology and behaviour of wild moor macaques
- Ungulate cognition
- The effects of hybridization on wolf behaviour