Donato Giovannelli

Donato Giovannelli is an Entrepreneur and a Professor of Microbiologist at the University of Naples "Federico II", Italy. He is an expert in the microbiology of extreme environments and the emergence and evolution of life. Within his work, he travels to remote locations of our planet to collect scientific samples to study how life emerged and evolved on Earth, how microbes control our planet functioning with implication for both extant ecosystems and the search for life in the Universe. Fieldwork activity include diving with deep research submarines, scuba diving to underwater volcanoes in remote locations, travelling to remote areas of the North Pole and climbing inside active volcanoes. He received a B.Sc. in Marine Biology and M.Sc. in Marine Ecology from the Polytechnic University of Marche, Italy. From 2007 to 2010 Donato worked as a graduate assistant at the Polytechnic University of Marche and the Institute of Marine Science of the National Research Council of Italy. In 2013 Donato obtained a Ph.D. in Applied Biology, Microbiology and Ecology from the University of Naples Federico II with a thesis on the extreme environments of the Mediterranean Sea. After the PhD, he spent several year in the USA, first as a Postdoctoral Fellow at Rutgers University, and as a Visiting Scholar at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, USA, then as a EON Research Fellow at the Earth-Life Science Institute in Tokyo, Japan. Donato is also the co-founder of Nano-Tech SpA, a fast growing specialty chemical company producing nanostructured advanced composite materials. Since 2018, Donato started collaborating with a three generation winemaker located central Italy, Alberto Serenelli. The small scale production (~20,000 bottles/year) is characterized by a constant search for perfection and emotions, with a small range of premium wines produced only in selected vintages. Besides the academic and entrepreneurship activities, Donato is actively working on outreach and science dissemination projects, including meeting with schools, science festivals and small science documentaries.