I hold a BSc in Social Statistics and Demography (First) from the University of Rome and I successfully completed a Masters (by Research) in Statistics from the University of Glasgow. In 2012 I also successfully completed my PhD in Demography in the Faculty of Epidemiology and Population Health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Supervised by Professor Emily Grundy, my doctoral research investigated the idea of ‘Active Ageing’ promoted by the WHO as a strategy for health and well-being among older people in Europe.

In 2011, I joined the Institute of Gerontology at King's College as a post-doctoral researcher to work with Professor Karen Glaser and Dr Debora Price on a Calouste Gulbenkian funded project investigating variations in the way older people care for grandchildren and how policies are related to patterns of grandparenting. This was followed by an ESRC-funded research project –within the Secondary Data Analysis Initiative –exploring the health impact of caring for grandchildren in Europe. I then worked on the Wellbeing, Health, Retirement and the Lifecourse project (wherl.ac.uk). My research focused on the complex relationships over time between paid work up to and beyond State pension age, and mental and physical health, taking life-course factors (i.e. family, paid work and health histories) and data missingness into account.