Education
  • Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering. The University of Sheffield (UK), Department of Mechanical Engineering. Dissertation: Remote Monitoring of Shallow Turbulent Flows Based on the Doppler Spectra of Airborne Ultrasound (2017).
  • MSc in Mechanical Engineering (110/110 CL). Università degli Studi di Ferrara. Dissertation: Experiments on Water Surface Roughness in Open-Channel Flows (2012).
  • BSc in Aerospace Engineering (110/110 CL). Università degli Studi di Padova. (2008).
Academic career and teaching activities

   Research Experience:

  • Postdoctoral Researcher. Università degli Studi di Trento, Department of Civil Environmental and Mechanical Engineering. Project title: Eco-geomorphic Carbon Pumping from Rivers to Blue Carbon Ecosystems (e-CAPTURE). Funding: PRIN (2023-current).
  • Postdoctoral Research Fellowship Holder. Università degli Studi di Trento, Department of Civil Environmental and Mechanical Engineering. Project title: Measuring Interfacial Gas Evasion Fluxes from Regulated Mountain Rivers. Funding: Fondazione Caritro (2021-2023).
  • Postdoctoral Research Associate. The University of Sheffield, Department of Civil and Structural Engineering. Project title: Rapid Monitoring of River Hydrodynamics and Morphology Using Acoustic Holography. Funding: UK EPSRC (2018-20).
  • Research Engineer in Fibre Optic Flow Sensing (KTP Associate). The University of Sheffield; Nuron Limited, London (UK). Project title: Fibre-Optic Sewer Flow Monitoring and Management Technology. Funding: Innovate UK (2018).
  • Postdoctoral Research Associate. The University of Sheffield, Department of Mechanical Engineering. Project title: Acoustic Technique to Monitor Dynamics of Water Systems. Funding: UK EPSRC (2017-18)
  • Ph.D. Student. The University of Sheffield, Department of Mechanical Engineering. Dissertation: Remote Monitoring of Shallow Turbulent Flows Based on the Doppler Spectra of Airborne Ultrasound. Supervisors: A. Krynkin, K.V. Horoshenkov, S.J. Tait. Co-funding: ADS LLC (2013-17).
  • Master's Student. Università degli Studi di Ferrara, Department of Mechanical Engineering, and University of Bradford, School of Engineering, Design & Technology. Project title: Experiments on Water Surface Roughness in Open-Channel Flows. Supervisors: F. Pompoli, P. Bonfiglio, K.V. Horoshenkov. (2012)

 

   Teaching Certificate:

  • Associate Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (UK Professional Standards Framework for Teaching and Learning Support in Higher Education). (2017)

   Teaching Experience:

  • Teaching Assistant - Thermofluids (BSc) (Università degli Studi di Trento, Department of Industrial Engineering) (2021-22)
  • Substitute panel member, Mechanical Engineering MSc vivas. Assessor, Bioengineering final year project posters. (The University of Sheffield) (2019)
  • Lab tutorial - Acoustics (MSc) (The University of Sheffield) (2017)
  • Lab tutorial - Solidworks (BEng) (The University of Sheffield, Department of Mechanical Engineering) (2016)
  • Superdemonstrator - An Introduction to Solidworks (MSc, PhD) (The University of Sheffield, Department of Mechanical Engineering) (2015-17)

   Supervision:

  • Thesis and research support for 3 PhD students, 3 MSc students, and 2 BSc students.
Research interests

Research Interest:

My research activity revolves mostly around the characterisation of water surface dynamics in turbulent flows, including related phenomena (gas evasion fluxes) and engineering applications (non-contact hydraulic measurements, ultrasound scattering). 

 

Main Research Topics:

  • Manifestation of free-surface-turbulence-bed interactions in open-channel and partially filled pipe flows;
  • Gravity-capillary waves dynamics in sheared flows;
  • CO2 and CH4 evasion fluxes at the free surface of rivers;
  • Non-contact river monitoring techniques based on videos, radar Doppler, and sound scattering;
  • Reconstruction of water surface shape based on ultrasound scattering;
  • Instrumentation and experimental/numerical signal processing in hydraulics and fluid mechanics.
Research work

Editorial Activity:

  • Guest Editor of the Special Issue Experimental Methods and Instrumentation in Hydraulics. Acta Geophysica. (2022) (with M. Nones, L. Przyborowski, M.M. Mrokowska, S. Conevski, M. Guerrero, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11600-022-00919-z)
  • Reviewer for: Applied Physics Letters, Frontiers in Environmental Science, Journal of Applied Physics, Physics of Fluids, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, Water Resources Research.

Events and Workshops Organisation:

  • Co-Chair for the International Surface Velocimetry Workshop (The Energy and Environment Institute, University of Hull), 4-6 May 2021, online.
  • Member of the Organising Committee and co-chair for the Webinar on Experimental Methods and Laboratory Instrumentation (Institute of Geophysics of the Polish Academy of Science, IAHR T.C. on Experimental Method and Instrumentation), 13-15 April 2021, online.
  • Head of the Organising Committee of the Acoustic Exchange Day (Sheffield Acoustics Early Career Researchers Network, with support from UK Institute of Acoustics), 2016.
Memberships in societies and scientific committees

Active Memberships:

  • International Association for Hydro-Environment Engineering and Research (IAHR) - Member (since 2015).
  • Acoustical Society of America (ASA) - Associate Member (since 2017)
  • European Geosciences Union (EGU) - Regular Member (since 2019)
  • Gruppo Italiano di Idraulica (GII) - Member (since 2022).

Past Memberships:

  • UK Institute of Acoustics (IOA) - Associate Member (2017-21)
  • UK Institute of Acoustics (IOA) - Student Member / Young Member Representative for the Yorkshire and North East Branch (2015-17)
Awards and honours
  • 15th ERCOFTAC Osborne Reynolds Research Student Award (third place), Manchester, UK. (2017)
  • Young Researchers’ Competition (second place), The International School of Hydraulics (IAHR), Jachranka, Poland. (2017)
  • ASA Student Council Travel Award, Acoustical Oceanography Committee, ASA/ASJ Joint Meeting, Honolulu, USA. (2016)
  • IIAV Outstanding Student Travel Grant, presented by the Acoustical Society of the Netherlands with The International Institute of Acoustics and Vibrations, ICSV 22nd, Florence, Italy. (2015)
Conferences and lectures

Invited Talks:

  • HyPeak Research Network Webinar (online webinar) (invited by Dr D. Vanzo). (2023)
  • KTH Royal Institute of Technology, MWL (online webinar) (invited by Dr E. Zea). (2021)
  • IMechE Technical Visit: Laboratory for Verification & Validation, Sheffield, UK (invited by Dr R. Barthorpe). (2019)
  • Kobe University, Department of Civil Engineering (invited by Prof. I. Fujita). (2019)
  • Expert Contributor at the UK Surface Velocity River Discharge Methods Workshop, Environment Agency, Wallingford (invited by Dr N. Everard). (2018)
  • Imperial College London, Department of Mathematics (invited by Prof. R. Craster). (2017)
  • University of Reading, Meteorology Department (invited by Dr M. A. C. Teixeira). (2015)

Presentations at Conferences:

  • EGU General Assembly, Vienna (AT). (oral pres.) (2023)
  • Forum Acusticum 2020, online (oral pres.) (2020)
  • River Flow 2020: 10th Conference on Fluvial Hydraulics, online (oral pres.) (2020)
  • EGU General Assembly, Vienna (AT). (oral pres.) (2019).
  • IOA Acoustics 2018 - Acwsteg 2018, Cardiff (GB). (oral pres.) (2018)
  • 4th International Symposium of Shallow Flows (ISSF), Eindhoven (NL). (oral pres.) (2017)
  • 5th Joint ASA/ASJ Meeting, Honolulu (USA). (oral pres.) (2016)
  • 22nd International Congress on Sound and Vibration (ICSV), Florence (IT). (oral pres.) (2016)
  • 36th IAHR World Congress, The Hague (NL). (oral pres.) (2016)
  • IOA 40th Anniversary Conference, Birmingham (GB). (oral pres.) (2014)

Summer Schools & Workshops:

  • International Surface Velocimetry Workshop, Lancaster (GB) & online. (2022)
  • 4th Nordic Hydrometry Workshop, online. (2020)
  • UK Surface Velocity River Discharge Methods Workshop, Wallingford (GB). (2018)
  • XXXVI International School of Hydraulics, Jachranka, (PL). (2017)
  • Summer School on Wave Propagation in Complex Media, Cargése, (FR). (2015)
  • Workshop on Advances in Numerical Modelling of Hydrodynamics, Sheffield (GB). (2015)