Professor of Zoology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Siena, Associate Professor at Temple University, he obtained a PhD in Animal Biology (1992) at the University of Siena, where he graduated in Biology in 1988. He worked as a doctoral fellow at Cornell Medical College and as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Connecticut. His main research interests focus on: systematics, evolution and molecular phylogeny of arthropods, with particular reference to basal hexapods (insects), including species of economic interest; population genetics of springtails; molecular evolution of the mitochondrial genome; biology and evolution of Antarctic springtails; molecular traceability of commercial fish products. Member of the Italian Zoological Society and of the Italian Society for Evolutionary Biology, he is an ordinary member of the Italian Academy of Entomology.

Collembola
Phylogeny
Systematics
Molecular evolution
Antarctic Collembola