Hello and welcome at my always work in progess webpage.

Starting September 1st, 2015 I am a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, while at the same time continue collaborating with scientists at NASA - Goddard.

I work with my Dr. Andrew Frichter (STScI) in exploring the nature of Gamma-ray Bursts host galaxies using ground based observations and HST data.

I obtained my PhD from Penn State University, under the supervision of Dr. Derek Fox, in June 2010.

My main interest is the study of the Early stages of the Universe, and the re-ionization era, using the most powerful explosion known by humankind, the Gamma-ray Bursts (GRBs).

I am also interested in Quasars and GRB afterglows absorption line spectroscopy, as probes of the chemical evolution of the Universe.

During my first post-doc appointment I worked with Dr. Josh Bloom at UC Berkeley and Dr. Jason X. Prochaska at UC Santa Cruz, home of the Lick Observatory. During these years I  worked on the physical mechanisms that power Long Gamma-ray Bursts, the (in)famous intervening MgII absorbers along GRB lines of sight, and the spectroscopic properties of a peculiar sample of GRBs, called GRB-LLS (LLS = Lyman-limit Systems).

I am also part of the RATIR collaboration: with the robotic power of this small telescope we hope to detect and promptly follow-up spectroscopically the new high-z record holder GRB!!!