About Me

Background

I studied Physics at University of Trento and Physics of Complex Systems at Politecnico di Torino, gaining a solid understanding of mathematics, data analysis, machine learning, and computational modelling. I also gained the healthy knowledge that you can get through most problems, if your head is hard enough.

I left Italy to pursue a master thesis project at ETH (D-BSSE) in Basel. The project involved the development of a ML pipeline, for automatic classification of excitatory and inhibitory neurons based on their electrical properties, as recorded with high-density microelectrode arrays (HD-MEAs). This meant endless microscopy sessions (to generate the labels for my ground truth dataset, unique in the world), and endless hours of coding, data wrangling, and model training. Thankfully, I had the support of some amazing people, incredible supervisors and friends, and a love for coffee.

I learned a lot about the biology of neurons, and about the challenges of working with real-world data. Through this experience I fell in love with neuroscience, a love that I had been slowly kindling since my bachelor thesis project, where I modelled neurons via the Hodgkin-Huxley as well as the Fitz-Nagumo equations. After my master's degree I decided to pursue a career as a data scientist in Zurich, at MaxWell Biosystems (MxW), to stay a bit longer in the field of neuroscience and build my expertise.

At MaxWell Biosystems

At MxW, I held a double role as Data Scientist and Product Manager, this second role specifically for a suite of analytical applications for the analysis of HD-MEA large-scale data (those chips generate A LOT of data). As Data Scientist, I was responsible for the development of ML pipelines for advanced analysis of HD-MEA data (e.g. spike sorting, classification of neurons, detection of network bursts, etc.), specifically in the context of internal R&D projects and collaborations with external partners within grants (pharma and biotech companies, academic labs all over the world). I also worked as Alpha Tester for our software, scrutinizing any new analytical feature and providing feedback to the development team.

This naturally evolved into my responsibilites as Product Manager, in which I worked across a multi-functional team of software developers, biologists, marketing experts, and sales representatives. I defined product roadmaps, launch and promotional campaigns, and I was responsible for the overall product strategy and vision. I also worked closely with our customers, to understand their needs and pain points, and to ensure that our products would satisfy both extremely technical users and those that preferred a plug-n-play solution.

What I've learned

More than anything, my academic background in physics, and now neuroscience, taught me the following:

• no problem is too complex to be tackled
• approaching problems with a willingness to be stupid at first is the only winning mindset
• being able to turn problems into parameters, to translate everything to math, is an incredibly powerful skill
• concepts from different fields can be connected in surprising ways, and that is where the magic happens
• more often than not, user's explained needs and their actual needs differ
• biologists deserve a place in heaven, because those samples NEVER behave and are very needy

Outside of work

Outside of work I'm a reader, a drawer, a writer, and an enthusiastic nerd. DnD, movies, TV series, comic books, mountains, and travel are what I love and let define me.