Professor of Genetics at the University of Naples Federico II (Italy). Consultant of the International Atomic Energy Agency for mosquito monitoring and control programs in southern Italy. Member of the panel of reviewers of the European Science Foundation. In 2005 he received a PhD in Advanced Biology at the University of Naples Federico II. His research is focused on the study of the sex determination and its evolution in insects of economic interest such as the agricultural pests Ceratitis capitata (Diptera) and Epitrix hirtipennis (Coleoptera) and disease vectors such as the Aedes albopictus (Diptera) and the sandfly Phlebotomus perniciosus (Diptera), using both classical molecular genetic approaches and Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) and bioinformatics. His research is conducted in collaboration with Italian and International universities and research institutes (Anton Dohrn Zoological Station, Naples; Institute of Genetics and Biophysics Adriano Buzzati-Traverso, Naples, University of Rome La Sapienza, National Institute of Health, Rome; Charles University, Czech Republic; University of Zurich, Switzerland; European Molecular Biology Laboratory, Germany; Broad Institute, USA).

Sex determination
insect biotechnology
bioinformatics
transcriptomics
citizen-science