I serve as director of IIHR—Hydroscience & Engineering, and as a professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Iowa. My research interests focus on flood hydrology, extreme events, remote sensing of rainfall, seasonal forecasting, and statistical modeling. In particular, I am interested in examining the impact of anthropogenic climate change on extreme flooding, rainfall, and tropical storm frequency. I received an MS in civil engineering from the University of Rome "La Sapienza" in 2003 and a PhD in civil and environmental engineering from the University of Iowa in 2008; I also received an Executive MBA from the Tippie College of Business at the University of Iowa in 2018. From 2008–12, I was a researcher in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Princeton University.