Curriculum Vitae
You can download my full CV here (last updated on March 14th, 2025).
Research experience
2024 - present  | Postdoctoral researcher International Center for Theoretical Physics, Trieste, Italy @ Quantitative Life Sciencies |
2023 - 2024  | Postdoctoral researcher École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland @ ECHO laboratory |
Sept - Dec 2022  | Visiting Ph.D. student AI Research Center, University of Tübingen, Germany @ Self-organization and optimality in neuronal networks |
June - July 2022  | Visiting Ph.D. student Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems, Germany @ Division of Biological Physics |
Education
Oct 2019 - Apr 2023  | Ph.D in Physics cum laude, University of Padova Thesis: Information and criticality in complex stochastic systems Supervisors: Amos Maritan and Samir Suweis |
Oct 2017 - Sept 2019  | Master's degree in Physics, University of Padova Thesis: Scaling and renormalization group for models of neural activity Advisors: Amos Maritan and Samir Suweis Final grade: 110/110 cum laude GPA: 29.93/30 |
Sept 2018 - Jan 2019  | Erasmus semester Sorbonne University, Paris Diderot University, Paris-Sud University ECTS GPA: A/A |
Oct 2014 - July 2017 | Bachelor's degree in Physics, University of Padova Thesis: A Bayesian interpretation of quantum probability Advisor: Pieralberto Marchetti Final grade: 110/110 cum laude GPA: 29.19/30 |
Publications & preprints
Finite size scaling of survival statistics in metapopulation models
Alice Doimo, Giorgio Nicoletti, Davide Bernardi, Prajwal Padmanabha. Physical Review E 111, 064415 (2025).A novel metric for species vulnerability and coexistence in spatially-extended ecosystems
Davide Bernardi, Giorgio Nicoletti, Prajwal Padmanabha, Samir Suweis, Sandro Azaele, Andrea Rinaldo, Amos Maritan. arXiv:2503.10288 (2025).Excitation-Inhibition balance controls information encoding in neural populations
Giacomo Barzon, Daniel M. Busiello, Giorgio Nicoletti, Physical Review Letters 134, 068403 (2025).Information interference driven by environmental activity
Giorgio Nicoletti, Daniel M. Busiello. Physical Review Research 6, 043275 (2024).Multiscale nonlinear integration drives accurate encoding of input information
Giorgio Nicoletti, Daniel M. Busiello. arXiv:2411.11710 (2024).Landscape and environmental heterogeneity support coexistence in competitive metacommunities
Giorgio Nicoletti, Prajwal Padmanabha, Davide Bernardi, Samir Suweis, Sandro Azaele, Andrea Rinaldo, Amos Maritan. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 121 (44) e2410932121 (2024).Information propagation in Gaussian processes on multilayer networks
Giorgio Nicoletti, Daniel M. Busiello. Journal of Physics: Complexity 5 045004 (2024).Tuning transduction from hidden observables to optimize information harvesting
Giorgio Nicoletti, Daniel M. Busiello. Physical Review Letters 133, 158401 (2024).Unveiling gene perturbation effects through Gene Regulatory Networks inference from single-cell transcriptomic data
Clelia Corridori, Merrit Romeike, Giorgio Nicoletti, Christa Buecker, Samir Suweis, Sandro Azaele, Graziano Martello. bioRxiv 2024.05.10.593314 (2024).Information propagation in multilayer systems with higher-order interactions across timescales
Giorgio Nicoletti, Daniel M. Busiello. Physical Review X 14 (2) 021007 (2024).Prenatal experience with language shapes the brain
Benedetta Mariani, Giorgio Nicoletti, Giacomo Barzon, Maía Clemencia Ortíz Barajas, Mohinish Shukla, Ramon Guevara, Samir Suweis, Judit Gervain. Science Advances 9 (47), eadj3524 (2023).Emergent encoding of dispersal network topologies in spatial metapopulation models
Giorgio Nicoletti, Prajwal Padmanabha, Sandro Azaele, Samir Suweis, Andrea Rinaldo, Amos Maritan. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 120 (46) e2311548120 (2023).Information gain at the onset of habituation to repeated stimuli
Giorgio Nicoletti, Matteo Bruzzone, Samir Suweis, Marco Dal Maschio, Daniel M. Busiello. arXiv:2301.12812 (2023).A network-based method for extracting the organization of brain-wide circuits from reconstructed connectome datasets
Karan Manjunatha, Matteo Bruzzone, Giorgio Nicoletti, Samir Suweis, Marco Dal Maschio. bioRxiv 2023.05.21.541471 (2023).The emergence of scale-free fires in Australia
Giorgio Nicoletti, Leonardo Saravia, Ferdinando Momo, Amos Maritan, Samir Suweis. iScience 26 (3) 106181 (2023).Mutual information in changing environments: Nonlinear interactions, out-of-equilibrium systems, and continuously-varying diffusivities
Giorgio Nicoletti, Daniel M. Busiello. Physical Review E 106, 014153 (2022).Information-driven transitions in projections of underdamped dynamics
Giorgio Nicoletti, Amos Maritan, Daniel M. Busiello. Physical Review E 106, 014118 (2022).Criticality and network structure drive emergent oscillations in a stochastic whole-brain model
Giorgio Nicoletti, Giacomo Barzon, Benedetta Mariani, Marco Formentin, Samir Suweis. Journal of Physics: Complexity 3 025010 (2022).Disentangling the critical signatures of neural activity
Benedetta Mariani, Giorgio Nicoletti, Marta Bisio, Marta Maschietto, Stefano Vassanelli, Samir Suweis. Scientific Reports 12, 10770 (2022).Mutual information disentangles interactions from changing environments
Giorgio Nicoletti, Daniel M. Busiello. Physical Review Letters 127, 228301 (2021).Neuronal Avalanches Across the Rat Somatosensory Barrel Cortex and the Effect of Single Whisker Stimulation
Benedetta Mariani, Giorgio Nicoletti, Marta Bisio, Marta Maschietto, Roberto Oboe, Alessandro Leparulo, Samir Suweis, Stefano Vassanelli. Frontiers in Systems Neuroscience 15:709677.Scaling and criticality in a phenomenological renormalization group
Giorgio Nicoletti, Samir Suweis, Amos Maritan. Physical Review Research 2, 023144.
Organized conferences
- Robustness, Adaptability and Critical Transitions in Living Systems Satellite, Conference on Complex Systems 2021, Lyon, France, 27th October 2021
Talks, presentations and posters
Landscape and habitat heterogeneity drive niche coexistence in dispersing ecological metacommunities
Contributed poster at ENAC Research Day 2024, Lausanne, Switzerland
Spatially disordered environments stabilize competitive metacommunities
Contributed talk at Stochastic Models and Experiments in Ecology and Biology 2024, L'Aquila, Italy
Information propagation across timescales in multiscale systems
Contributed talk at Information processing, noise and adaptation in living systems (SIGNAL24), Dresden, Germany
Information propagation across timescales
Invited talk at Quantitative Life Sciences section, ICTP, Trieste, Italy
Tuning transduction from hidden observables to optimize information harvesting
Invited talk at Information processing and decision-making in biology, ICTP, Trieste, Italy
Survival and coexistence in spatially explicit metapopulation models
Invited talk at 'Emergent dynamical patterns of disordered systems with applications to natural communities' workshop, University of Padova, Padova, Italy
Emergent encoding of dispersal network topologies in spatial metapopulation models
Contributed poster at Italian Conference on Complex Systems 2023, Naples, Italy
The architecture of information processing in biological systems
Contributed talk at Statphys28, Tokyo, Japan
Criticality and network structure drive emergent oscillations in a stochastic whole-brain model
Contributed poster at Brain Criticality Meeting 2022 (online), Bethesda, MD, USA
Information-driven transitions in optimal projections of underdamped dynamics
Contributed talk at CCS 2022, Palma de Mallorca, Spain
Criticality and network structure drive emergent oscillations in a stochastic whole-brain model
Contributed talk at CCS 2022, Palma de Mallorca, Spain
Disentangling the critical signatures of neural activity: avalanches, spatial correlations and information
Contributed poster at Bernstein Conference 2022, Berlin, Germany
Information theory in stochastic processes and complex systems
Invited talk at Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems, Dresden, Germany
What can criticality and phase transitions teach us about brain dynamics?
Invited talk at BrainNet workshop, KTH, Stockholm, Sweden
Unfolding complex systems with information theory
Invited talk at SIFS, Online
Modeling the emergence of scale-free fire outbreaks in Australia
Contributed talk at CCS 2021, Lyon, France
Disentangling internal interactions from noisy environments through mutual information
Contributed poster at CCS 2021, Lyon, France
Disentangling the role of external and intrinsic dynamics on the critical signatures of neural activity
Contributed talk at CCS 2021, Lyon, France
Modeling the emergence of scale-free fire out-breaks in Australia
Contributed poster at Stochastic Models and Experiments in Ecology and Biology 2021, Venice, Italy
On the critical signatures of neural activity
Contributed poster at The Beg Rohu Summer School 2021, Beg Rohu, France
What can a phenomenological Renormalization Group teach us about criticality in a network of neurons?
Contributed poster at Brain Criticality Virtual Meeting, Online
Scaling and criticality in a phenomenological Renormalization Group
Contributed poster at Bernstein Conference 2020 (online), Berlin, Germany
Scaling and Renormalization Group for the activity of neurons
Contributed poster at First Italian Conference on Complex Systems, Trento, Italy
Attended schools and workshops
- Emergence of Information in Molecular Systems, Munich, Germany, 22nd July - 2nd August 2024
- Winter Workshop on Complex Systems 2022, Arc-et-Senans, France, 24th - 28th January 2022
- The Beg Rohu Summer School “Statistical Mechanics and Emergent Phenomena in Biology”, Beg Rohu, France, 30th May - 12th June 2021
- Brain Connectivity Workshop, online, 25th - 28th May 2021
- Winter School on Quantitative Systems Biology: Quantitative Approaches in Ecosystem Ecology, online, 30th November - 18th December 2020
- Youth in High-dimensions: Machine Learning, High-dimensional Statistics and Inference for the New Generation, online, 29th June - 3rd July 2020
- Computational and Theoretical Models in Neuroscience Summer School, Venice, Italy, 9th - 16th September 2019
Honors and awards
- Physical Review Letters Editors’ Suggestion and Physics Viewpoint for the paper “Tuning transduction from hidden observables to optimize information harvesting”
- Featured in the ``Top 100 papers in Neuroscience’’ published by Scientific Reports in 2022 for the paper “Disentangling the critical signatures of neural activity”
- Graduate Alumni Award, best graduate student in the School of Science of the University of Padova
- SECS grant, provided by the Young Researcher in Complex Systems Society.
- Physical Review Letters Editors’ Suggestion and Physics Viewpoint for the paper “Mutual information disentangles interactions from changing environments”
- Best Poster Award at SMEEB 2021 for the poster “Modeling the emergence of scale-free fire outbreaks in Australia”
Supervision
- Supervision of one student’s thesis for the Bachelor Degree in Physics, University of Padova, Italy.
- Supervision of two student’s thesis for the Master Degree in Physics of Data, University of Padova, Italy.
- Supervision of two students’ projects for the Master Degree in Physics of Data, University of Padova, Italy.