April 2023 -in progress: Research fellow at the Department of Agriculture, Food and Environment (Di3A), University of Catania, entitled "Bio-agronomic interventions on fruit crops: physiological, metabolomic and qualitative determinations."
2022/2023 - Research fellow at the Department of Agriculture, Food and Environment (Di3A), University of Catania, entitled “Evaluation of graft/graft combinations and environmentally sustainable bio-agronomic interventions in citrus."
2020 and 2021 - Research periods at the Institute of biomolecular chemistry (ICB) – CNR in Catania studying the primary and secondary metabolites in fruits using HPLC/DAD, HPLC /ESI-MS and GC/MS analysis
2022 - PhD in Agricultural, Food and Environmental Science at Catania University, on the topic “Role of the rootstock in influencing fruit quality and tolerance to salt stress in pigmented citrus species”.
2021 - Research activities at the Jaume I, University of Castellon de la Plana, Spain, on the topic “Responses of citrus rootstocks to abiotic stress conditions” investigating on the metabolomic and hormone response of citrus rootstocks under water and salt stress, using liquid chromatography and bioinformatics software.
2019 - Research period at The Edmund Mach Foundation, San Michele all’Adige, Italy, and working on the topic “Metabolomic and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) characterization on plant matrices” using mass spectrometry (GC- PTR-ToF-MS).
2018 - Research grant for research activity at the Catania University on the topic “Influence of the rootstock on the main productive characteristics in citrus cultivation” investigating the role of the rootstock on yield and qualitative traits of citrus fruit.
2018 - Erasmus + Traineeship at the Universidad Miguel Hernandez in Elche (Spain) investigating on the topic “Influence of agronomical features on citrus qualitative traits” in which the evolution of the biochemical compounds of blood oranges fruits was monitored during maturation by liquid chromatography (HPLC) in experimental field with the same scion-rootstock combinations located in different Italian and Spanish environmental conditions.
2018 - Passed the qualifying examination to practice the profession of agronomist and forestry doctor.
2017 - Stage at the Department of Agriculture, Food and Environment (Di3A) of the University of Catania, investigating the main qualitative traits of blood orange affected by rootstocks.
2017 - Master’s Degree in Agricultural Sciences and Technologies, University of Catania. Degree thesis: “Influence of rootstock on early fruiting and anthocyanic content in sweet orange [Citrus sinensis (L.) Osbeck]”. Final mark: 110/110 cum laude