My journey into science did not begin in a laboratory but rather in a childhood fueled by boundless curiosity. Growing up in Milan, I was fascinated by the patterns and puzzles of the natural world. My first experiences with science were informal—mixing household cleaners at the kitchen sink and poring over a book on atomic energy at age ten for a school assignment. That assignment opened a door to physics that I did not know existed. Every afternoon, I watched Piero Angela’s science documentaries. Angela was a pioneering Italian science communicator and television host. His programs made complex ideas accessible and turned inquiry into a daily habit. In high school, a devoted philosophy teacher cultivated my curiosity, introducing me to quantum mechanics, the nature of scientific theory, the logic of falsification, and Thomas Kuhn’s reflections on how scientific paradigms rise and shift. Those years left me unafraid of hard problems and deeply curious about science, especially physics.

My true love for optics and lasers was ignited during my master’s thesis at the European Commission Joint Research Centre in Ispra. It was there, while working on fibre Bragg gratings, that I first applied lasers to research in non-linear optics. This passion grew during my PhD, where I secured a fellowship at Università degli Studi di Milano that allowed me to work in the advanced laboratories of ultrafast spectroscopy at Politecnico di Milano, under the supervision of Prof. Mauro Nisoli.

A major milestone during this period was my focus on high-order harmonic generation (HHG) in atoms, molecules, and clusters. Under the mentorship of J. Marangos, I developed experiments in impulsively aligned molecules, a collaboration that shaped my preference for complex, international research environments. These early years taught me that focus and hard work were the essential attitudes for success in a field where we measure time in quintillionths of a second.

Following my PhD in 2005, I moved into a postdoctoral role at the Istituto Nazionale per la Fisica della Materia, where I pioneered the development of high-energy mid-infrared optical parametric amplifiers in collaboration with Prof. Giulio Cerullo. This work, which achieved passive carrier-envelope phase stabilisation, became a cornerstone of my career and was recognised worldwide as a vital tool for strong-field applications. A significant turning point in my career arrived in 2009, when I secured my first permanent position as a Researcher at the Institute of Photonics and Nanotechnologies (IFN) of the National Research Council (CNR) in Milan.

A transformative chapter of my journey occurred in 2010, when I served as a visiting scientist in the group of Prof. P. Corkum at the National Research Council of Canada. Immersed in what I considered the best group in the world for attosecond research, I broadened my perspective: this international exposure was crucial; it provided the foundation upon which I built my visibility in the global scientific community.

In 2012, I reached a pivotal milestone by winning an ERC Starting Research Grant with a project on imaging of molecular dynamics by HHG spectroscopy. This grant allowed me to establish my own research group and labs, marking my transition from a researcher to a principal investigator. Establishing a research group in attosecond science is much like building a high-precision clock while the room is moving; it requires the technical precision to capture moments that vanish in an instant, the strategic vision to ensure all the gears align over years of effort, and the resilience to keep the mechanism running even when external circumstances shift.

When I was finally established as a PI, I made the strategic decision to expand our research into solid-state dynamics and ultrafast THz spectroscopy, filling a gap in the Italian scientific landscape. As my career progressed, the required skill set shifted as well. While early success relied mostly on technical focus, my role as a Principal Investigator and Research Director required vision and the ability to motivate collaborators. I have been fortunate to see my group grow, supervising many PhD and master’s students, many of whom have gone on to hold prominent positions in academia and in the private sector.

None of what I have achieved would have been possible without my collaborators—above all, the students and postdocs—whose ideas, persistence, and generosity shaped our successes; I am profoundly grateful and keenly aware of my good fortune.

Life in research is rarely a straight line. I have encountered challenges, from the logistical difficulties of establishing a new research line in Italy to balancing professional ambitions with family life, including a maternity leave in 2017. Through these times, I have remained an optimist, adhering to the belief that success is about the courage to continue.

I am also acutely aware of the ongoing challenges regarding diversity in STEM, and I am actively looking into opportunities to build a more inclusive scientific community. While I found the attosecond community to be quite inclusive, we must strive for more women and minorities in leading positions to truly impact policy-making. As physicists, we often consider ourselves purely rational, yet we must remain conscious of our unconscious biases to make science a safer place for everyone.

Today, as the Director of the Institute for Photonics and Nanotechnology of the Italian National Research Council, I am excited by the next level of optics research made possible by large facilities like FERMI at ELETTRA Sincrotrone Trieste and the European XFEL. My journey from a curious child in Milan to leading a national institute has taught me that optics is more than the science of light: it resolves nature’s quickest events and, just as importantly, helps illuminate communities—fostering knowledge, trust, and shared purpose through science.

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