After doctored in Quantum Optics and a brief experience as a consultant in Nuclear Medicine, I began my attendance at the Institute of Atmospheric Physics of the Italian National Research Council. There, I dealt with the characterization of the opto-electronic LIDAR system in Frascati and its redesign. I used its data, in conjunction with satellite measurements to study the temporal evolution of the stratospheric cloud caused by the eruption of Mount Pinatubo in 1991. Thereafter, and until to date, I have dealt with the Institute LIDAR systems in the Antarctic bases of McMurdo (Rayleigh-Raman) and Dumont d'Urville (ozone DIAL), exploiting the data for the study of aerosol microphysics and polar stratospheric clouds and their role in the mechanisms of stratospheric ozone loss.
In parallel, I designed and built miniature optical systems for the characterization of airborne particulate. This original and innovative instrumentation has been used on stratospheric balloons and research aircraft (M55 Geophysica) in an intensive activity of field measurements, in the poles in relation to the processes of ozone loss, at mid-latitudes for the study of tracer transport, stratospheric chemistry, stratosphere-troposphere exchange, microphysics of high altitude clouds, and in the tropics to study the mechanisms of troposphere-stratosphere transport, with particular emphasis on the study of the microphysical processes involving water vapour and the role that deep convection has in the chemistry and microphysics of the tropical upper troposphere and lower stratosphere.
My skills vary from Optics to Electronics and Atmospheric Sciences, with an emphasis on Stratospheric research.