Federico Rossi

Federico Rossi received his Ph.D. in Agricultural Microbial Biotechnology in 2011 from the University of Florence. From 2011 to 2022, he held postdoctoral positions at the University of Florence, the University of Milan, and the National Research Council (NRC), and for two years (2019-2021), he was an adjunct professor of Applied Microbiology at Cà Foscari University of Venice, and he is currently Assistant Professor at the University of Pisa. His research mainly focuses on the physiology of phototrophic biofilms and microbial communities, especially biological crusts, in drylands. His studies aim to characterize the ecology and physiology of these unique microbial communities to evaluate (and quantify) their contribution to a rich array of soil functions in drylands. He has devoted special scientific attention to cyanobacteria, a dominant and essential fraction of the biocrust community, able to release chemically complex extracellular polymeric substances and various biomolecules with profound effects on biological activity and soil productivity. Based on this, he developed his research to understand how these bacteria can be used/exploited as soil bioinoculants in field applications as part of land restoration strategies.