He graduated in Engineering from Politecnico di Milano in 1983 and then obtained his PhD in the United States at Princeton University. He returned to Politecnico in 1990, where he taught a variety of courses in the field of Energy Systems. From 1997 to 2005, he was Vice-Rector of the Piacenza campus of Politecnico and, since 2005, President of LEAP (Laboratorio Energia Ambiente Piacenza), a research organisation affiliated with Politecnico. Since 2023, he has been on the Board of Directors of the Euro-Mediterranean Centre for Climate Change (CMCC).

Trained in research on gas turbines, cogeneration and biomass, he then focused on the complex link between energy and the environment, in particular energy from waste and CO₂ capture.

Scientific coordinator of numerous national and international research projects, he has promoted two major European projects (CLEANKER, HERCCULES) for pilot testing of CO₂ capture, utilisation and storage. 

Since 2011, he has been director of MatER (Materia ed Energia da Rifiuti), a research centre supported by major Italian companies for waste management.

In 2002-03, 2007 and 2018, he was a Visiting Research Scientist at Princeton University, developing research on technologies for climate change mitigation.

He is the author of over 150 papers published in journals and conference proceedings.

The Lombard Institute, Academy of Sciences and Letters, awarded him the 2022 Kramer Prize for his achievements in the field of circular economy.