Faculty & Staff Directory

I’m an Instructor in the Biology Department, where I have taught anatomy and physiology since 2019. I believe that a great scientist, doctor, nurse, or other professional can come from anywhere. That belief is why I teach at a community college. My roots are in Salento, in southern Italy. My scientific training took me to Rome’s “La Sapienza” for a doctorate in molecular biology and vertebrate development, then to The Rockefeller University in New York City. Today, as an Adjunct Assistant Professor at UCSF, I study how cells interpret signals and regulate genes, connecting development and RNA biology with vascular disease. Until recently, I was also a Biology Instructor at Santa Clara University. What I bring from research into teaching is a way of approaching the unfamiliar: ask a precise question, follow the evidence, and revise your explanation when it no longer holds. Students bring their own ways of seeing, shaped by their cultures, languages, work, and family life. I want our classroom to be a place where those experiences inform scientific inquiry, and where each student develops a perspective they can carry into their chosen field. That takes work. Anatomy and physiology are hard, and the body has little respect for chapter boundaries. Understanding it requires us to connect ideas, practice patiently, and return to problems we could not solve the first time. In the spirit of JFK’s moon speech, I welcome a challenge that draws out our best abilities. These courses open career doors while developing the judgment and persistence those careers demand. My responsibility is to make that challenge worthwhile, with clear expectations, useful feedback, and opportunities to improve. Excellence grows through dedicated, persistent effort, supported by teaching that recognizes different strengths, starting points, and constraints. I aim to help each student achieve their best and earn confidence in what they can do. This guides my work redesigning A&P: connecting lecture, laboratory work, and assessment around knowledge students can retain and use in professional practice. My research into teaching also asks how emerging technologies can help students think for themselves. With colleagues, I coauthored a published pilot study of a framework for critical use of AI in scientific writing. Students should be able to question a convincing answer, including one delivered by a very confident machine. I also want students to experience research firsthand. In my computational research, Foothill undergraduates have helped evaluate gene-editing candidates for alkaptonuria, a rare inherited disorder. Their supervised checks of sequences and designs help prepare for future experiments. They contribute to an investigation with open questions and learn the care and persistence that such work requires. Outside work, I enjoy scuba diving among coral reefs and creative writing. A future scientist, doctor, or nurse may arrive by a route unlike mine, with a way of seeing I have never considered. I want to be ready to teach that student and to learn from what they bring.