Marco Neri

## Origin

Marco grew up in a family of four, the youngest of two sons to Tommaso and Gabriella Neri. His elder brother Niccolaio was 6 when he was born, so most of his childhood was spent alone creating inventions in his bedroom or out with the few friends he had from school playing Dungeons and Dragons. At the weekends, they would often hike up the side of Mount Etna or go to the beach, both of which Marco could see from his family's beautiful villa in the Viagrande commune of Catania. His family were close, but they spent a lot of time on their own interests, which allowed Marco to develop a passionate interest in physics. While he was enamoured with space and the planets, his childhood hero was Nikola Tesla and he wanted to be just like him when he grew up. However, when he hit his teen years, he went through the usual rebellion stage, drinking and smoking weed, staying out past his curfew and not studying. This meant when it came time to apply to university he was lucky to scrape in, but he was accepted to the University of Catania to study physics and astronomy.

He worked extremely hard to achieve the associate degree and made sure to party hard to celebrate. A couple of days later, after having been up all night studying, he was driving to his parents house when he fell asleep at the wheel. His foot became essentially leaden in that moment and pressed down hard on the accelerator and the car barrelled into a lamp post, ripping it out of the concrete with the force of the smash. Marco was lucky to survive and luckier still to only require a six week stay in hospital. With a whiplash injury and a busted knee, he dropped out of university with a bad case of depression. He felt like an idiot over the car crash. In his now ample spare time he explored Sicily, taking in scenery he hadn't seen before and visiting the natural pools and coves. He took up brewing and developed his own beers, even inventing a temperature regulation device for his homemade brewing system. He joined Krav Maga classes for exercise and learned how to meditate. He would hike up Mount Etna alone to listen to music and watch the sunset… he was working through his depression his own way and it was working.

It took him 4 years to overcome the aftermath of the crash and regain his passion and drive for learning. Luckily, when it came to returning to university (he applied for masters in order to ease back in… who does a master's degree to EASE IN?) his coursework and exam scores from before were exemplary so he was easily readmitted. He achieved the MSc in record time with a perfectly written thesis on the acoustics of volcanoes and now it was time for him to choose his PhD specialisation. For a long time, he gave serious consideration to both nuclear physics and theoretical physics (Nikola Tesla was his hero after all) his growing love of space and its never ending wonders won out and he chose astrophysics. Currently in his second year of the PhD, we meet him on one of his hikes, where he is about to meet someone like no one he's ever met before.

## Strengths

Genius level intellect, quick thinking, inventive mind, near expert level blacksmith (also brews a beautiful beer)

## Weaknesses

After a car accident some years before, his neck and left knee often become stiff, causing mobility issues. Prone to random passionate outbursts, clumsy, socially awkward, overthinks everything to a ridiculous level.