Gianmarco MUGNAI

Personal Information
 
Given Name/Surname: Gianmarco Mugnai
Nationality: Italian
ORCID: 0000-0002-0130-7683
 
Current Academic Position
 
January 2022 - Present
Tenured assistant professor (RTD-A)
University of Perugia, Department of Agricultural, Food and Environmental Sciences, Perugia, Italy.
Research topic: Conservation and exploitation of yeast biodiversity for the production of fermented beverages with low alcohol content.
 
Research Experience
 
June 2021 - December 2021
Postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Florence, Department of Agriculture, Food, Environment and Forestry (DAGRI), Florence, Italy.
Research topic: Photobiological production of polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB) from biomass using purple non-sulfur bacteria.
 
June 2020 - May 2021
Postdoctoral research fellow at the National Research Council, Institute of BioEconomy (CNR-IBE), Sesto Fiorentino, Italy.
Research topic: Microalgae-based biorefinery for the production of biostimulants and biopesticides using nutrients from wastewaters.
 
March 2020
External scientific collaboration, Faculty of Science and Technology, Free University of Bolzano-Bozen, Bolzano, Italy.
Research topic: Analysis of predicted functional bacterial enzymes involved in the metabolism of carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, and sulphur using the PICRUSt2 (Phylogenetic Investigation of Communities by Reconstruction of Unobserved States) software.
 
November - December 2019
Postdoctoral research fellow at the Faculty of Science and Technology, Free University of Bolzano-Bozen, Bolzano, Italy.
Research topic: Characterization of the structure, function and dynamics of the bacterial communities within the dark fermentation process of Olive Mill Waste.
 
November 2018 - October 2019      
Postdoctoral research fellow at the Department of Food, Environmental and Nutritional Sciences (DeFENS), University of Milan, Milan, Italy.
Research topic: Identification and screening of antibiofilm compounds from olive mill waste and evaluation of their effects on biofilm genesis.
 
September - October 2018
Postdoctoral research fellow at the Department of Food Environmental and Nutritional Sciences (DeFENS), University of Milan, Milan, Italy.
Research topic: Flow cytometry analysis for reactivation of biological soil crusts and their virome analysis.
 
Research Visits Abroad
 
May 2017           
Visiting Doctoral Researcher at the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, Environmental Genomics & Systems Biology (EGSB), Berkeley, U.S. Research activities: measurement of metabolite retention by biocrust extracellular polymeric matrix (EPM) and extracellular polymeric substances (EPS) using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) and liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS).
 
July 2016
Visiting Doctoral Researcher at Institute of Hydrobiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan, China. Research activities: Isolation and characterization of EPS-producing cyanobacteria in the Hobq Desert, Inner Mongolia, China, to prevent and reverse the desertification process.
 
June 2016
Visiting Doctoral Researcher at Department of Soil Science, University of Kassel, Witzenhausen, Germany. Research activities: hydro-physical studies on biological soil crusts.
 
March - June; October – November 2015
Visiting Doctoral Researcher at the Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences, Institute of Life Sciences, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel. Research activities: study of Microcystis aeruginosa responsible for the algal bloom in the Sea of Galilee, including the extraction of EPS from Microcystis aeruginosa and the investigation of quorum sensing among heterotrophic bacteria isolated from the same algal bloom.
 
Education
 
2023     National Scientific Qualification (Abilitazione Scientifica Nazionale – ASN AGR/16) for the role of Associate Professor in Agricultural Microbiology.
 
2018      PhD in Agricultural and Environmental Sciences (Academic Discipline: Microbiology) at the Department of Agrifood Production and Environmental Sciences (DISPAA), University of Florence, Italy. Dissertation title: “Development of induced biological soil crusts and their effect on soil properties”.
 
2014      MSc in Molecular Biotechnology, University of Florence, Italy. Thesis title: “Characterization of biological soil crusts in Arctic extreme environments through metagenomic analysis of the microbial community”. Grade:109/110
 
2011      BSc in Biotechnology, University of Florence, Italy.
 
Publications in Peer-Reviewed Scientific Journals
Publications: 21; H-index: 11. Total citation: 685 (Source: Scopus; September 2024)
 
Prizes and Awards
 
1.     Prize for Best Young Researchers Publication awarded by Italian Society of Agri-Food and Environmental Microbiology (IT-SIMTREA), Turin, Italy, 27th April 2021.
2.     Mobility grant of the Italian Society of Agri-Food and Environmental Microbiology (IT-SIMTREA) for the stage at the Faculty of Science and Technology, Free University of Bolzano-Bozen, Bolzano, Italy, November 2019.
3.     Prize for Best Young Researchers Publication awarded by Italian Society of Agri-Food and Environmental Microbiology (IT-SIMTREA), Naples, Italy, 26th March 2019.
4.     Mobility grant of the Italian Society of Agri-Food and Environmental Microbiology (IT-SIMTREA) for the stage at the Department of Food Environmental and Nutritional Sciences (DeFENS), University of Milan, Milan, Italy, October 2018.
 
Oral Presentations
 
International conferences
   1.   1st International Conference of Mediterranean Biodiversity (2023); “Biological soil crusts succession and dynamic: the potential interactions between bacterial, fungal and metazoan communities in Arctic Svalbard”; Lecce; Italy, 13-15 September 2023.
   2.    Workshop DAAD (2019); “A novel method to monitor the biological soil crust reactivation by flow cytometry, and metagenomic analysis of its viral community”; Lisbon, Portugal, 22–25 October 2019.
   3.    6th Congress of the International Society for Applied Phycology (ISAP2017); “Algalization using the cyanobacterium Leptolyngbya ohadii: a biotechnological approach for arid soil rehabilitation”, Nantes, France, 18–23 June 2017.
   4.    European Geosciences Union (EGU2017). “Cyanobacterial crust induction using two non-previously tested cyanobacterial inoculants: crusting capability and role of EPSs”, Vienna, Austria, 23–28 April 2017.
   5.    3rd international Workshop on Biological Soil Crusts (BIOCRUST3; 2016). "Effect of inoculated cyanobacteria on the structure and development of induced biological soil crust", Moab, Utah, U.S., 26–30 September 2016.
 
Experience in Academic Teaching
 
2024-2025 Lecturer
Bachelor's Degree Program in Food Sciences and Technologies (L-26), Department of Agricultural, Food, and Environmental Sciences, University of Perugia; Course: MICROBIOLOGY, 9 hours of co-teaching.
 
2022-2023 Lecturer
Bachelor's Degree Program in Food Sciences and Technologies (L-26), Department of Agricultural, Food, and Environmental Sciences, University of Perugia; Course: MICROBIOLOGY, 9 hours of co-teaching.
 
2021-2022 Lecturer
Bachelor's Degree Program in Food Sciences and Technologies (L-26), Department of Agricultural, Food, and Environmental Sciences, University of Perugia; Course: MICROBIOLOGY, 9 hours of co-teaching.
 
2018-2024 Co-supervision of Bachelor and Master students.
 
Reviewer
 
Frontiers in Microbiology (2024), World Journal of Microbiology & Biotechnology (2021), Web Ecology Journal (2021), Biology and Fertility of Soils (2020), Ore Geology (2020) PLOS ONE (2020), ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering (2019), Scientific Reports (2019), Plant and Soil (2019), Soil Biology and Biochemistry (2018), Catena (2018), Journal of Applied Phycology (2018), Microbial Ecology (2018).
 
 
Membership in scientific organizations
 
-Italian Society of Agro-Food and Environmental Microbiology (IT-SIMTREA)
-Italian Society for General Microbiology and Microbial Biotechnology (IT-SIMBGM)