I graduated from Bologna University in 1981 with a thesis on one of the first experimental evidence of the Z0 boson ( supervisor Alberto Benvenuti).Title ‘ Measurement of the gamma-Z0 interference term in Deep inelastic scattering of muons on a carbon target’.

In 1983 I joined the MAC experiment at the PEP collider at SLAC (Stanford, California) first as a INFN postdoc associated to the Frascati National Laboratory and then as a Stanford Visiting Scientist. During this period I worked with Prof. David Ritson. In MAC I contributed to the construction of the Straw Tubes vertex detector and developed tracking and vertexing code which I used to study the properties of the tau lepton, namely the decay branching fraction and lifetime.

In 1986 I returned to Europe first as a research post at INFN, Bologna and then as a CERN research fellow.

I joined the DELPHI experiment at the CERN LEP collider. I became CERN research physicist in 1988 and CERN permanent staff in 1991. In DELPHI I worked in the design, construction and readout acquisition of the Electromagnetic calorimeter (HPC) readout chambers. I joined then the central data acquisition group as responsible for the data quality monitoring. Later I proposed, designed and coordinated the construction of the second generation Luminosity monitor (STIC) and coordinated  the Luminosity analysis. In 1994-1995 I became the LEP physics coordinator and chaired the LEP energy measurement team.

During the LEP2 period I participated in the CERN team analysis effort searching for new particles, amongst other  I contributed an original analysis on the search for monojets.

In 1999 I was elected spokesman of the DELPHI experiment. During this exciting period the main research activities were concentrated on the search for new particles and the Higgs boson and on the precision measurement of the properties of the W boson.

I joined the CMS experiment in 2001. In CMS I was first coordinating the forward calorimeter (HF) project and between 2003 and 2007 I was the technical coordinator of the Electromagnetic Calorimeter (ECAL) project. From January 1st 2007 until december 2010 I was part of the CMS executive board with the task of Run and Commissioning coordinator.

From Jnauary 1st 2012 I will be Deputy spokesperson of the CMS collaboration