I am Professor of Theoretical Astroparticle Physics at the University of Amsterdam, where I am based at GRAPPA, the Center of Excellence in Gravitation and Astroparticle Physics, within the Institute of Physics. My research lies at the interface of cosmology, high-energy astrophysics, particle physics and gravitation, with dark matter as a recurring thread. My current programme, supported by NWO and by the ERC Advanced Grant De Tenebris, uses black holes and gravitational waves as probes of fundamental physics and cosmology.
After an MSc in Theoretical Physics at the University “La Sapienza” of Rome and a PhD carried out between the University of Oxford and the Institut d’Astrophysique de Paris, I held postdoctoral positions at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory and the University of Padova, before moving to Paris to take up a permanent CNRS position at the Institut d’Astrophysique de Paris. I later served as Visiting Professor at the University of Zürich. More recently, I was Visiting Professor at Columbia University and a Fellow of the Italian Academy for Advanced Studies in America.
A substantial part of my career has been devoted to building scientific institutions and communities. In Amsterdam, together with a group of talented young faculty, I helped establish the GRAPPA Center of Excellence in Gravitation and Astroparticle Physics, for which I served as Founding Spokesperson until 2019. At the European level, I was the Founding Director of the European Consortium for Astroparticle Theory, EuCAPT, hosted at CERN, which now brings together more than 140 partner institutions and about 2000 researchers.
I am also strongly committed to science literacy and to the civic role of science. I have written two popular science books, translated into several languages, and I have given public lectures and media interviews in several countries. I founded the Global Cosmos Prize Programme for Science Literacy, an international initiative for high-school students, endorsed under the UN International Decade of Sciences for Sustainable Development, led by UNESCO.
More information about me and my work can be found in my full CV (updated 15 May 2026).
A complete list of my publications is available through Google Scholar, arXiv, and INSPIRE.