Research interests: gravitational waves, computational methods in general relativity, machine learning.

Research Experience

Machine Learning Research Assistant – VRAI Labs

Università Politecnica delle Marche (Remote), Supervisor: Primo Zingaretti

2025

Representation Theory of Non-abelian Magnetic Charges

MSc Dissertation at Imperial College London, Supervisor: João Magueijo

2024

  • Investigated the representation theory of charges and non-abelian analogues of the Dirac quantization condition for non-abelian gauge theories, with the final aim of understanding gravitational magnetic charge
  • Achieved a First Class Honours grade for the project

Black Hole Entanglement Entropy from Causal Graphs

Wolfram Summer School, Mentor: Jonathan Gorard

2023

  • Research experience in the Wolfram Physics project, Causal Set Theory, and General Relativity
  • Applied numerical GR tools in Wolfram Language to obtain causal structure of a Schwarzschild black hole
  • Investigated the hypothesis that black hole entropy emerges from the entanglement of the interior and exterior causal graph regions

Red Giant Photoevaporation in the Galactic Centre

MSci Project at Imperial College London, Supervisor: James Owen

2022 — 2023

  • Produced a comprehensive analysis, concluding that proximity to an accreting supermassive black hole can significantly impact the evolution of red giant stars
  • Computational and theoretical project: designed, wrote, and tested shareable code
  • Continued after graduation, building on previous results: modified MESA, a research-grade stellar evolution code, to simulate the evolution of red giants under photoevaporation

Education

Doctor of Philosophy

King's College London, London, UK

Oct 2025 — Present

  • Supervised by Prof. Mairi Sakelleriadou

MSc Quantum Fields and Fundamental Forces | Merit (66.93/100)

Imperial College London, London, UK

Sep 2023 — 2024

  • Modules include: Particle Symmetries, Differential Geometry, QED, Advanced QFT, Black Holes, String Theory, Supersymmetry, Relativity and Cosmology

MSci Physics with Theoretical Physics | 2:1 (67.08/100)

Imperial College London, London, UK

2019 — 2023

Publications

Balloni, E., Paolanti, M., Uggeri, J., Zingaretti, P., & Pierdicca, R. (2025). Enhancing Cultural Heritage with Generative AI: A Comparative Framework for the Evaluation of 3D Model Accuracy and Visual Fidelity. In Digital Heritage — Eurographics Workshop on Graphics and Cultural Heritage, The Eurographics Association. https://doi.org/10.2312/dh.20253146

Additional Positions

Affiliate Researcher

Jan 2025 - Jan 2026

Wolfram Institute

AI for Academic Research Intern

Jan 2025 - June 2025

Framework (Harvard ILabs-funded)

Workshops & Conferences

Wolfram Institute, Remote

  • Produced project report Exploring Ruliological Engineering of Well-defined Geometries from Hypergraph Rewriting

Heidelberg University, Passo del Tonale, Italy

  • School organised by Heidelberg University aimed at advanced masters students and PhD students, participated in workshops on fundamental physics tests with GW and attended lectures from leading researchers in the field

KU Leuven, Leuven Gravity Institute

  • Participated in week-long school on gravitational waves, focusing on the theoretical and experimental aspects
  • Presented a poster on my MSc research on the representation theory of non-abelian magnetic charges

Frontiers in Scientific Research Summit

Feb 2024

Imperial College London, SynBIC

  • Selected as a speaker and gave a talk on MSci research on Red Giant Photoevaporation
  • Presented a poster, which was awarded the second best poster prize as judged by practicing physicists

Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain – Remote

Teaching Experience

Imperial College London

Graduate Teaching Assistant (Helpdesk)

Sep 2023 - Mar 2024

  • Ran helpdesk sessions for UG students, providing support and guidance on course material and technical issues

Graduate Teaching Assistant (Labs)

Sep 2022 - Mar 2023

  • Assisted 1st-year students in labs, guiding them to develop critical thinking and problem-solving skills

Extracurriculars

Imperial Eco-Marathon – Simulation Team Member

2023

Languages

Italian – Native

English – Native

Spanish – Advanced

Japanese – Intermediate

Mandarin – Beginner

Skills

Coding C# C++ Java Git Mathematica
Markup LaTeX HTML CSS
ML & Data Python PyTorch OpenCV