Marine geologist working on the study of continental margins, from the shore to the abyss from mid-latitudes to polar regions, and on the evolution of coastal systems in the Anthropocene. Director of the Department of Earth System Sciences and Environmental Technologies of CNR, Rome (1500 people, 12 Institutes distributed in 54 towns) between June 2017 and February 2024, after directing for 8 years the Institute of Marine Sciences (CNR) in Venice. President of CORILA, Venice, between 2015 and 2017. Wrote more than 200 articles on international journals (H Index 62 and > 11,000 citations on Google Scholar) and served on the boards of Geology, Marine Geology and Geo-Marine Letters, co-editing 6 special issues of different journals.
Coordinator of national and international projects on the geological mapping of Italian seas, blue economy (RITMARE), sequence stratigraphy and marine geohazard (mostly funded by private Industry: ExxonMobil, ENI, Shell, Snamprogetti, Galsi), and Quaternary climate change. Coordinator of Eurodela and Bluemed and contractor in other 12 European projects. Held a course on Marine Geology at the University of Bologna and nurtured Master and PhD students at the University of Bologna and other European Universities.