I am an Italian researcher with a passion for animal behaviour and the outdoors.

I started my tertiary education at the University of Padova, where I completed my Bachelor's degree in Cognitive Psychology and Psychobiology in 2015 and my Master's degree in Applied Cognitive Psychology in 2018. I then moved to the University of Florence to join Dr. David Baracchi's laboratory as a Research Assistant for a year. In 2020, I became a PhD student at the Macquarie University in Sydney (Australia) in Dr. Chris R. Reid's lab.

At the University of Padova, I performed my Master's thesis in the Animal Behavior and Cognition Lab headed by Prof. Angelo Bisazza. Here I used a spontaneous choice paradigm to explore the quantitative abilities of the house cricket Acheta domesticus. During my time in Padova, I discovered my interest in invertebrate cognition and had the opportunity to publish my first paper.

In Florence, I joined Dr. David Baracchi's Cognitive Ecology Lab to study the impact of exogenous factors on the learning and memory abilities of the honey bee Apis mellifera and the bumble bee Bombus terrestris. Working with bees I grew passionate about social insects and curious about the mechanisms that allow them coordinate activities within the colony, which inspired me to perform my PhD on collective behaviour.

In my PhD I aim at discovering the group- and individual-level mechanisms underlying self-assembly and collective behaviour in the weaver ant Oecophylla smaragdina. I combine empirical and computational tools for exploring the behavioural rules that ants use to coordinate their behaviour and reach consensus. During my PhD I have become interested in computer vision and modelling as methods for studying animal behaviour and cognition.

Self-assembly behaviour in the weaver ant Oecophylla smaragdina

PhD - Macquarie University (2020 - 2024)

One of the most striking examples of collective behaviour observed in social insects is that of self-assemblages: sophisticated three-dimensional structures that insects form by linking their bodies together. Self-assemblages are extremely dynamic, can rapidly adapt to colony need and local conditions, and rapidly disassemble when no longer needed. These structures are completely self-organized: they emerge from relatively simple and locally mediated interactions among colony members, which are only locally informed and without any blueprint. Workers of the arboreal weaver ant Oecophylla smaragdina form three-dimensional chains using their own bodies to bridge vertical gaps between existing trails and new areas to explore. I combine experimental and modelling tools for discovering the individual-level rules that ants use when forming self-assemblages.

Learning and memory in bees

Research assistant - University of Florence (2019 - 2020)

Honeybees need to memorise the features of the flowers they forage on. The ability to learn and recall learned stimuli may however affected by exogenous factors, such as nectar compounds or pesticides. Using well-established protocols for studying bees' behaviour and survival, I explored the effect of nectar non protein amino acids (NPAAs) and of a biopesticide (Bauveria bassiana) have on bees' ability to learn and recall floral scents.

Quantity discrimination in crickets

Master's degree - University of Padova (2018)

Many animals face different situations in which being able to discriminate between quantities could be especially adaptive in relation to the ecological context. Animals may discriminate between quantities by representing the number of objects in a scene or, alternatively, by representing a value of a continuous variable that covaries with numerosity, such as the cumulative surface area or the convex hull. Here we exploited the natural shelter-seeking behavior of house crickets (Acheta domesticus) to investigate their quantity discrimination abilities by presenting sets of geometrical shapes that simulated potential shelters.