People
Faculty Members
Luca Alberti
Associate Professor
Luca Alberti is an Associate Professor at the Civil and Environmental Department (DICA) of the Politecnico di Milano. He received his PhD in Applied Geology from the University of Ferrara. He has been researching in hydrogeology, groundwater and contaminant transport modeling, contaminated sites remediation, contaminants fingerprinting, water resources management.
PhD Students
Paolo Colombo
PhD student
Paolo Colombo is a PhD student at the Hydrogeo Modeling research group of the Civil and Environmental Department (DICA) at Politecnico di Milano. He received his Bachelor and Master degrees in Environmental and Land Planning Engineering at Politecnico di Milano. He developed his Master’s thesis at Wageningen University & Research (The Netherlands), focusing on human impacts on hydrological droughts. In 2021 he spent a period with the hydroinformatics team at KWR – Water Research Institute (The Netherlands), where he developed a deep learning model to forecast surface and groundwater levels. His main research interests are water resource management and exploring climate change impacts and solutions on surface and groundwater. He is a member of the Scientic Committee of UNESCO’s Groundwater Youth Network (GWYN).
Erica Oldani
PhD student
Erica Oldani is a Ph.D. candidate at Politecnico di Milano, working with the Hydrogeo Modeling research group at the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (DICA) and Isotope Tracer Technologies Europe srl. Her research focuses on environmental forensic applications of isotopic probing techniques such as Compound-Specific Isotope Analysis (CSIA), and the use of reactive transport modeling tools to trace the sources and fate of contaminants in groundwater and to monitor the performance of bioremediation activities. Erica holds a Bachelor’s degree (BSc) in Environmental Sciences and Technologies from the University of Milano-Bicocca, Italy (2018), and a Master’s degree (MSc) in Environmental Chemistry from the University of Bayreuth, Germany (2021). Before joining the Hydrogeo Modeling team, she gained international work experience as a research assistant in Zurich, Switzerland (2021-2022) and as a trainee at the European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC) in Geel, Belgium (2023).
Claudia Medina Montecinos
PhD student
Claudia Medina is a PhD student and member of the Hydrogeo Modeling team at the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering of the Politecnico di Milano. She is an environmental engineer who graduated from Universidad Católica Boliviana and obtained her MSc in Groundwater and Global Change (2023) after completing an Erasmus Mundus joint program at IST Lisboa (Portugal), IHE Delft (The Netherlands) and TU Dresden (Germany). Her MSc thesis research was carried out at Deltares (The Netherlands), and it focused on exploring the long-term effects of sea level rise adaptation measures through density-dependent groundwater flow modelling. Accordingly, her research interests are related to groundwater modelling for sustainable long-term groundwater management. She is committed to the field of international cooperation for knowledge development.
Research team
Matteo Antelmi
Researcher (RTDA)
Matteo Antelmi is an Environmental and Land Planning Engineer and his research topic is the numerical modeling of Ground Source (or Groundwater) Heat Pump systems. He received the Bachelor and Master degrees in Environmental and Land Planning Engineering at Politecnico di Milano. Since 2011, as researcher, he has been collaborating with Civil and Environmental Engineering Department (Politecnico di Milano) concerning low temperature geothermal systems (in order to improve the energy efficiency of HVAC systems) and flow and transport numerical modeling projects for the evaluation of different groundwater contamination impacts. Currently he is a researcher at Politecnico di Milano (Civil and Environmental Department). At the same time, he is a contract professor of Geothermal Energy (master degree course at the Scienze della Terra department of the Università degli Studi di Milano) and assistant for Groundwater and River Applied Modelling and Geomorphology courses (master degree courses at the Politecnico di Milano).
Pietro Mazzon
Post Doc Research Fellow
Pietro is a Post Doc at Politecnico di Milano. He achieved his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Environmental Engineering at Politecnico di Milano and Luleå Tekniska Universitet, Sweden (Erasmus programme). In 2024, he concluded his PhD at Politecnico di Milano in Environmental and Infrastructure Engineering, also spending a period at the Université Laval, Québec, Canada, with a thesis titled “Reactive Transport Modelling of a Chlorinated Solvent Plume and Uncertainty Analysis: A Case Study”. His research interests are in the field of groundwater modelling, in particular he works on Reactive Transport and Isotope Fractionation Modeling applied to bioremediation, Uncertainty Analysis (PEST/PEST++) and regional flow modelling. He collaborates in many projects with Regione Lombardia, Eni Rewind, Autorità di Bacino Distrettuale del Fiume Po (MidAS-Po project) and the INTERREG CENTRAL project MAURICE. Since 2021, he is a Teaching Assistant of the Groundwater and River Applied Modelling master degree course in Environmental and Land Planning Engineering. He is member of the IAH Italian Chapter and of the ECHN Italy task team.
Nandini Chakkalaparambil Viswanath
Post Doc Research Fellow
Nandini is a Geologist currently serving as a post-doctoral researcher at Politecnico di Milano. She possesses over ten years of research experience in geology, hydrogeology, remote sensing, and GIS. Nandini has also held a post-doctoral research position at Ferrara University, working on the EU-funded Air-Break project. Her professional background includes teaching and research roles at renowned institutions such as UAE University, Christ College, Dhanish Ahmed College of Engineering, Kerala University of Fisheries and Ocean Studies, and Presidency College etc., She earned her bachelor’s degree in Geology, a master’s degree in applied Geology, and a Doctoral degree in Geological remote sensing.
Andrea Rovelli
Research Fellow
Andrea Rovelli è un geologo che ha conseguito i propri studi in Università Statale di Milano (Dip. Ardito Desio) specializzato in Geologia Applicata all’Ambiente, al Territorio e alle Risorse Idriche. Durante l’ultimo anno della laura magistrale ha collaborato con il gruppo di ricerca delle Freie Universitat (Berlin) al progetto CliWac attraverso il programma Erasmus+. Ha svolto una tesi di ricerca sul progetto MAURICE (Interreg CENTRAL EUROPE) in capo al Politecnico di Milano, seguendo inizialmente tutta la fase di reperimento di dati, passando per la creazione del modello geologico 3D (Leapfrog) fino all’impostazione del modello matematico in stazionario dell’Area Pilota (MODFLOW). Attualmente copre una posizione di assegnista di ricerca presso il Dipartimento di Ingegneria Civile e Ambientale del Politecnico di Milano (DICA), collaborando con il gruppo Hydrogeo Modeling per quanto riguarda il proseguio del progetto MAURICE ma è coinvolto anche in altri progetti tra cui il progetto MidAS-PO e SIAM2.
Master Students
Master student
Collaborators
Sara Barbieri
Geo-Kore, Tethys
Sara Barbieri received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Environmental and Land Planning Engineering from Politecnico di Milano. Since joining the Geosciences team at Politecnico di Milano as Research Assistant in late 2020, her research focused on both shallow geothermal energy management and modeling and groundwater management projects. One of the latest is the collaboration with Regione Lombardia and Arpa Lombardia for the analysis of the quantitative and qualitative status of groundwater for the development of the regional water use protection plan (PTUA 2022). She collaborated in the teaching activities of the course “Geothermal Energy” at Università degli Studi di Milano in 2021. In 2021 she took the professional state exam for Civil and Environmental Engineering.