I was born and grew up in Italy, on the coast of Tuscany.
In 1998, I received my Laurea degree (equivalent to M.S.) in Computer Science at the University of Pisa. My thesis was on "Computational Geometry techniques for approximation of electrostatic forces".
Once school was over, it was time for me to serve in the military. Back then, in Italy the service was still mandatory. In December 1998, I succesfully completed the training camp (top of the class) and received officer ranks in the Italian Navy. I proceeded to serve in the Italian Naval Academy for the next year.
In 2000, I moved to the US to join the graduate school at The University of Texas at Austin in the Department of Computer Sciences. Six years later, during a hot Texan week of July 2006, not only did Italy win the football World Cup, but I also received my Ph.D. Under the supervision of Prof. Robert van de Geijn, I defended the dissertation "Mechanical Derivation and Systematic Analysis of Correct Linear Algebra Algorithms". The dissertation was then selected as finalist for the Householder Award and as the department candidate for the 2006 ACM Doctoral Dissertation Award.
In September 2006 I was hired as research associate in the Department of Computer Science at Duke University. There I collaborated with Profs. Xiaobai Sun and Nikos Pitsianis, working on algorithms for Fast Fourier Transforms on the Cell processor.
Since June 2008 I am in Germany, at the RWTH-Aachen University. Here I am appointed as Junior Professor in the Computer Science, and as Young Research Leader at AICES, the Aachen Institute for Advanced Study in Computational Engineering Science.

Numerical Linear Algebra, High-Performance Computing, Automation.

According to the Myers-Briggs test, I am an INTJ type, a.k.a. "The Scientist", belonging to the group of the Masterminds.
Thanks to Robert, my Ph.D. supervisor, I am in Carl Friedrich Gauss's academic line, meaning that I am one of his academic descendents. Close ancestors in my line are Pete (GW) Stewart and Alston Householder.

My biggest passion is undoubtably music. As one can guess from my email address, I am a dj. A house music dj, to be precise. When in Italy, dj-ing is my primary activity. I have been collecting and mixing house music since 1991. I consider myself a deep connoisseur of the various subgenres and professional djs in house music. A few of my tapes can be found in the Links page.
The Pet Shop Boys are my favorite band. My collection is HUGE (more than 350 items).

The second greatest passion is a tie between volleyball, which I equally love to watch or play, and the Dolomites, where I can hike, ski, or simply relax, i.e., my favorite place on Earth.

Other hobbies include poker, boardgames and D&D. Oh, I'm a movie buff too.