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Welcome to my website!

I’m Nicola, I’m currently pursuing a PhD in Computer Science at Aalto University, Finland. My research interests span Model-based Reinforcement Learning, Large Language Models, Code Generation and Vision-Language Models.

Beyond that, I am passionate about the impact AI is having and will have on the world, the quest for Artificial General Intelligence and the relevance (and lack thereof) of academia and the EU in this landscape.

AI is reshaping the world, and while it can feel overwhelming, I believe we all have a role to play—if we choose to engage.

I try to play my part at Aalto University by bringing high-quality educational resources and research opportunities on Large Language Models. For example:

Led the Seminar course on Large Language Models (2023 & 2024) which won the Best Small Course Award in Aalto University’s CS Department. (Course material)
Organiser of the Seminar on Large Language Models at Aalto University–currently ongoing.
Pushed for more integration between Master Thesis workers and PhD researchers, concretely co-authoring a paper published at NeurIPS 2024 with Matteo Merler (and other collaborators), which at the time was doing his thesis under my advisement. His thesis was awarded the Best Thesis Award at the CS Department of Aalto University with other 2, among more than 500.
Currently advising 2 master’s students in training a small multilingual language model on 13 European languages from scratch on the LUMI supercomputer.

I plan to share my experiences as a PhD student, insights into my research, and reflections on the evolving AI landscape. Stay tuned for upcoming blog posts, or feel free to reach out if you’re interested in discussing research or collaborations!

Planned topics include:

Retrospectives on my research papers
Deep dives into research trends and ideas
Thoughts on academia and the PhD

Find out more: