my SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH page

 
 

My research activity started at the National Research Council of Italy in the field of respiratory physiology. Then it moved to muscle and exercise energetics, stimulated by a very nice book written by Pietro Enrico di Prampero, and to the biomechanics of locomotion, fostered by the knowledge and enthusiasm of Franco Saibene.


Two periods abroad,  spent in Geneva and in Leeds, UK, under the supervision of Prof. R. McNeill Alexander, reinforced my passion for the mathematical/computational approach to optimization problems in biomedicine. Particularly, the search for energy minima explaining motor phenomena and the belief that a mechanical engineer attitude is of great help to biologist in interpreting human and animal movement, started guiding my choice in terms of topics to be investigated.


Back to Milan, my research activity focused on the relationship between energetics and mechanics of different forms of locomotion, by means of custom software I wrote to post-process  3D motion analysis, dinamometric and metabolic data.


My 6.5 years spent in the UK, then, allowed me to combine previously developed expertise (theoretical and experimental) in a series of papers of very different nature, including a palaeo-physiomechanical stream of publications about ancient locomotion.


In general terms, I am attracted by any interesting problem, even in fields distant from my original background, which can be solved by historical search, physics, mathematics, biology and modelling.

 

SCIENTIFIC INTERESTS

3D motion capture of 0.5 ton horse gallop

3D motion capture of Cross Country Skiing