Profile: 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.
Career: 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.
Leadership: 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.
Public Engagement: 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.
CV & Publications: 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.