I completed both my bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Geological Sciences and Technologies at the Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca and I spent five months at the University of Vienna through the Erasmus+ program. While my bachelor’s was more of a general overview of geology, ranging from geomorphology, mineralogy, sedimentology, geo-resources to paleontology, my master’s focused more on natural phenomena and their assessment, as well as active and structural geology and applied seismology, which was the subject of my master’s thesis.

During my university journey, I completed both my internship and my master’s thesis at the Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV) in Milan, where I could put my skills to the test and have a taste of what it means to work in a research team. My master’s thesis focused on local seismic effects of earthquakes using AI-trained algorithms, which sparked my interest in applying modern techniques to study geoscience problems. I worked on a national dataset of geophysical tests, using MATLAB’sRegressionLearner tool to develop machine-learning models that predicted Vs30 (a proxy of sites effects) values for seismic micro-zonation. The project involved iterative modelling, statistical analysis and data visualization, culminating in the creation of a Vs30 map and shaking scenarios for earthquake-induced landslides probability.

This work stimulated my curiosity about computational approaches to geological problems and large-scale phenomena and reinforced my enthusiasm for research-driven learning.