She completed her master degree in Biological Science at the University of Pavia, Italy. She received her Ph.D. degree in Physiological Botany from Uppsala University, Sweden with a thesis on plant development. She then moved to California where she conducted her postdoctoral studies at The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla where she investigated the molecular mechanism of the circadian clock in plants and at the University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, where she focused on protein complex assembly during cell migration in amoebas. Next, she joined a system biology laboratory at New York University, and worked on nitrogen assimilation in plants. Her research interests include the circadian clock and mineral nutrition in plants.