Prof. Andrea LAPI

Andrea Lapi obtained his Ph.D. in 2004 at the University of Rome “Tor Vergata”. Since 2025 he is full professor at SISSA in Trieste and in the years 2018-2022 he has been heading the Astrophysics and Cosmology Group. His expertise is broad, spanning from galaxy evolution to cosmology to dark matter and gravity to data science. 

 key interests: 

• galaxy formation and evolution
• physical cosmology
• dark matter and gravity 
• gravitational waves
• data science in astrophysics

Dr. Marcella MASSARDI 

Marcella Massardi obtained her Ph.D. in 2008 at SISSA in Trieste. From 2011 to 2023 she has been manager and since 2023 she is head of the Italian node of the European ALMA Regional Center (ARC) and senior researcher at INAF/IRA in Bologna. Her expertise is in radio/(sub)mm observations of extragalctic targets, and data handling/mining.  

key interests: 

• extragalactic radio sources
• high-z galaxies and galaxy formation
• galaxy clusters and SZ effect
• user support deployment for ALMA and SKAO
• archive mining 

Dr. Francesca PERROTTA

Francesca Perrotta is researcher at SISSA, in Trieste, since 2008. She worked for many years as a Cosmologist, involved in the scientific context of Cosmic Microwave Background and the Planck satellite. Her current projects focus on  detection and analysis of spectral molecular lines in galaxies, with particular emphasis on  spectroscopy and astrochemistry of high-redshift galaxies (as peculiar physical environments with respect to Milky Way).

key interests: 

• astrochemistry
• spectroscopy
• interstellar medium

Dr. Balakrishna Sandeep HARIDASU

Balakrishna S. Haridasu obtained his Ph.D. degree at GSSI in 2017, then he moved to Trieste for his postdoc at IFPU and since 2025 he is a fixed-term researcher at SISSA. His expertise is broad, ranging from cosmology to modified gravity to data science techniques in cosmology.
key interests: 

• modified gravity
• cosmology
• data science in cosmology

Dr. Lumen BOCO

Lumen Boco got his Ph.D. degree at SISSA in Trieste, where he is now a post-doctoral researcher at the Univ of Heidelberg in Germany. His research work is on gravitational waves, with a particular focus on the galactic environments hosting their sources. For these reasons he is also interested in models of galaxy formation and evolution.
key interests:

• gravitational waves from compact object binaries
• gravitational waves from dynamical mergers
• galaxy formation and evolution
• chemical evolution models and empirical metallicity relations
• formation of SMBH heavy seeds

Dr. Vincenzo GALLUZZI

Vincenzo Galluzzi obtained his Ph.D in 2018 at the University of Bologna. He is researcher at INAF-Istituto di Radioastronomia (IRA) in Bologna since 2021, and member of the Italian Centre for Astronomical Archives (IA2). His expertise is in radio/(sub)mm observations and cosmology, and data centre development for radio telescope facilities (Italian telescopes and SKA).

key interests:

• extragalactic radio sources
• radio polarimetry
• cosmology
• archive mining

Dr. Giovanni GANDOLFI

Giovanni Gandolfi graduated in 2019 at the University of Bologna and obtained his Ph.D. at SISSA in 2023. He is currently a postdoctoral researcher at INAF/OAR in Rome. He is an expert of high-redshift galaxy observations and theory, including astroparticle constraints.
key interests:

• high-z galaxies (with a special focus on JWST data analysis)
• galaxy formation and evolution
• dark matter (theory and observations)
• beyond-GR gravity models
• theoretical cosmology and dark energy

Dr. Marika GIULIETTI

Marika Giulietti graduated in 2019 at the University of Bologna, and got her Ph.D. at SISSA in 2023. She currently works as a postdoctoral researcher at INAF/IRA in Bologna. Her research focuses on high redshift galaxies subject to strong gravitational lensing selected from wide area sub-millimeter/millimeter surveys and their role on co-evolutionary models of galaxy evolution.
key interests:

• high-z galaxies and galaxy formation
• strong gravitational lensing
• multi-band observations
• dusty star-forming galaxies

Dr. Gayathri GURURAJAN

Gayathri Gururajan obtained her Ph.D in 2022 from Aix-Marseille Université / Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de Marseille. She is currently a postdoctoral researcher at SISSA. Her interests lie in understanding the evolution of massive galaxies in the early Universe. Specifically, she studies the gas reservoirs of high-z lensed dusty galaxies using spectral observations in the sub-mm domain with ALMA to understand their nature and evolution.
key interests:

• evolution and mass assembly of massive galaxies at high-z 
• strongly lensed dusty star-forming galaxies/sub-mm galaxies
• interstellar medium, dust and gas reservoirs of galaxies
• environmental effects on the evolution of galaxies at high-z

Dr. Tommaso RONCONI

Tommaso Ronconi obtained his Ph.D. in 2020 at SISSA in Trieste, and now he works as a postdoc at INAF/IRA Bologna. His expertises lie at the interface between Astrophysics, Cosmology and High Performance Computing. 

key interests:

• galaxy formation and evolution
• broad-band emission from distant galaxies
• cosmic voids and large scale structure
• empirical modelling of the galaxy-halo connection 
• software development and machine learning methods

Dr. Maria Vittoria ZANCHETTIN 

Maria Vittoria got her Ph.D. at SISSA in 2024  and now works as a postdoctoral researcher at INAF Observatory of Arcetri in Florence. Her research work is focused on the study of the multiphase gas in local active galaxies, in order to quantify the impact of the Active Galactic Nucleus (AGN) on the galaxy host. Her expertise is in radio/submm and optical observations.

key interests:

• AGN driven winds 
• Local Seyfert galaxies
• AGN galaxy co-evolution
• Multi-band spectroscopy

Dr. Meriem BEHIRI

Meriem Behiri obtained her Ph.D. in SISSA in 2025 and she is now a postdoc at INAF/OAS in Bologna. She mainly focuses on multi-wavelength studies of high-redshift galaxies and their role in galaxy formation and evolution.
key interests:

• high-z galaxies and galaxy formation 
• dust obscured galaxies 
• extragalactic radio sources 
• observational cosmology 
• outreach & space politics 

Dr. Francesco GABRIELLI

Francesco Gabrielli obtained his Ph.D. degree in 2025 at SISSA, and now he works as a postdoc at Univ. Uppsala in Sweden.  His research interests range from multi-messenger astrophysics to stellar evolution to galaxy formation.
key interests:

• binary formation and evolution in galactic environments
• pair-instability supernovae and the black hole mass function
• multi-messenger astronomy
• galaxy formation and evolution

Francesco BENETTI

Francesco Benetti graduated cum laude at the University of Bologna, and is currently pursuing a Ph.D. at SISSA. He is proposing a scenario where dark matter is subject to a fractional nonlocal interaction mediated by gravity, and is testing it via galaxy rotation curves modeling, galaxy clusters thermodynamics, weak lensing and caustics analysis.
key interests:

• fractional and nonlocal gravity
• non-standard dark matter scenarios
• galaxy rotation curves modeling  
• galaxy clusters as gravity and dark matter laboratories

Michele BOSI

Michele Bosi graduated at the University of Padova with a thesis about cross-correlations between gravitational wave data and galaxy surveys to constrain cosmological models. He is currently pursuing his PhD at SISSA, working on how gravitational waves emitted by binary sources are connected to their host galaxies. In particular, this  analysis requires an accurate modelling of the galaxy star--formation histories, taking into account both observations and theoretical prescriptions.

key interests: 

• galaxy formation and evolution 
• gravitational wave astronomy
• cosmology with gravitational waves
• multi-messenger astrophysics

Martina TORSELLO

Martina Torsello graduated in 2022 from the University of Trieste and is currently a Ph.D. student at SISSA in Trieste. She works in computational astrophysics in the galaxy formation and evolution field. Her research focuses on the population-level chemical characterization of dusty star-forming galaxies at high redshift." 

key interests:

• galaxy SED Fitting 
• astrochemistry
• HPC techniques 

Enrico VERALDI

Enrico Veraldi obtained his Master Degree in 2024 at the University of Bologna. He is currently a Ph.D. student at SISSA in Trieste. He is a master in exploiting spectral synthesis code to model multi-wavelength continuous and line emissions from galaxies and AGNs, with a specific focus on high redshift. His interests also include machine learning and HPC techniques applied to astrophysics.

key interests:

• spectral synthesis codes
• high-z galaxy and AGN evolution
•  machine learning and HPC techniques