Education

• 2024: Habilitation and Venia Legendi in Linguistics and Phonetics, University of Zurich.

• 2010: Ph.D. in Linguistics from the University of Naples L'Orientale (Topic: First and Second Language Acquisition from the Biolinguistic Perspective (supervised by A. De Meo and C. Vallini).

• 2006: Specialization in L2 Italian Acquisition and Teaching, University of Naples L'Orientale.

 Employment

• from June 2024: Permanent position as Academic Associate in Phonetics and Speech Sciences at the Department of Computational Linguistics.
• 2022-2024: Senior researcher in Phonetics – NCCR Evolving Language, Workpackage. Accommodation. 
• 2021-2022 : Post-doc in Phonetics – NCCR Evolving Language, Workpackage. Accommodation
• 2018-2020: Post-doc in Phonetics and Coordinator of the Research Group on Accommodation and Social Categorization – URPP Language and Space (Research Project: Rhythmic accommodation between Swiss German dialects)
• 2016-2018: Post-doc in Phonetics, Phonetics Lab, University of Zurich (Research areas: Suprasegmental characteristics of L2 and elderly speech)
• 2012-2016: Post-doc in Phonetics and Linguistics, University of Naples 'L'Orientale' (Research Project: Acoustic correlates of foreign-accented Italian).

Teaching

• 2024: Phonetics and Phonology, Introduction to Forensic Speech Sciences, University of Zurich.
• 2017- : Computational Processing of Speech Rhythm for Language and Speaker  Classification, University of Zurich.
• 2012-1016: General Linguistics, Multilingualism and Language Acquisition, Modern Languages Teaching at the University of Naples L'Orientale (Italy).
• 2011-2015: Interlanguage Analysis for Specializing Courses and Second Level Master at the University of Naples L'Orientale (Italy)
• 2009-2016: Italian language and culture at different Italian University Language centers.

 Research interests

I am currently examining the phenomenon of phonetic convergence in relation to voice individuality and speaker recognition dynamics. In addition, I have worked extensively on the production and perception of speech temporal characteristics, focusing on between-language rhythmic variability, second language speech, age-related changes, and pathological speech. I have also researched the effect of bilingualism and biliteracy on developing literacy-related skills in a second language and tested the use of CAPT systems in the acquisition of L2 prosody.