Andrea Serani

I was born in 1986, the year in which Top Gun, Highlander, Labyrinth, Short circuit, Howard the duck, An American Tail were released, all films that, with their mix of action, adventure, science/science fiction, magic and a pinch of romanticism, they marked my childhood, stimulating in me the imagination, curiosity and interest in technical sciences.

In 1994, a French animated series Il était une fois ... les Découvreurs (English, Once Upon a Time ... The Discoverers) was released, in which the individual episodes were dedicated to men and women who, individually or collectively, made discoveries or inventions that have changed the course of history. Among the many who have left an indelible mark on my mind, I remember two characters with a marked engineering approach, "fathers" of steam engines, Heron of Alexandria and George Stephenson. The genius of the first, capable of applying basic physical principles, as early as the 1st century AD, and the innovativeness of the second, mind outside the box, who engineered land transport, passing from horses to the steam locomotive, they are still today an infinite source of inspiration.

Rationality and methodological rigor are the basis of my scientific attitude. Their seed was certainly installed by my father, also an engineer (never practicing), who raised me on bread, love and engineering. Logic puzzles and riddles have always fascinated me. Finally, at university, I was struck by fluid dynamics.

The combination of all these things led me to be a researcher. My research field focuses on the study, development and application of shape optimization methods based on computer simulations. Knowing that for any problem there is an optimal solution not known, just waiting to be found, represents the challenge of my daily work, a job that I love and that leads me every day to look for innovative methods to find, in the most effective and efficient as possible, such a solution.

I have been an athlete. I played volleyball, a sport so loved, sometimes even hated, which taught me team spirit. Spirit that I find today in the research group of which I belong and in which, every single day, I try to bring ideas and enthusiasm.

I am a husband (I owe so much to my wife, a unique woman) and a father of three fantastic troublemakers, the curiosity in their eyes for every single thing is an enveloping light that I carry with me every day at work and then put it back home, because that light (whoever does this job knows it well) never goes out. Whether it's day or night, a working day or a vacation, that switch is always on, sometimes too much, but it's part of the game.

Because being a researcher is a fortune and a luxury. I feel free to think, to make mistakes and to break the barriers of the unknown or at least try.