After his Master Degree in Electrical Engineering (Univ. of Rome, Italy), he was hired in 1990 at the European Space Agency, ESA, first in Germany (Operation Center, Darmstaft, ESOC) to work on mission analysis and later in The Netherlands (ESTEC) as a spacecraft control systems engineer. In 1997 he moved to Toulouse, France, employed at CNES (Centre National des Etudes Spatiales, Toulouse) as a SAR applications engineer in Earth Observation. During this period at CNES, he was Project Manager for the International Charter on Space and Major Disaster.
After obtaining his PhD (Optical-radar remote sensing for the monitoring of surface deformation and change and its application to natural risk management) he moved to ESA/ESRIN, in Italy, Earth Observation Directorate, where is the Scientific Coordinator of the Education and Training Activities in Earth Observation.