Speaker Bios

Dr. Massolo has got his undergraduate degree in Biological Sciences at the University of Pisa (IT), where he also completed his Master of Science in Animal Biology and Behaviour in 1994, working on modelling the occurrence of wolves in the northern Apennines (Italy). In 2000, he then took his PhD at the University of Siena (IT) in Animal Biology (Zoology) on the behavioural ecology of the crested porcupine, and then he spent 4 years as post DOC at the University of Florence. Afterwards he served as sessional professor in various Universities across Italy until 2008 when he joined the Department of Ecosystem and Public Health at the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine (University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, Canada) as faculty member in Wildlife Health Ecology. At UofC he founded the Wildlife Ecology and Spatial Epidemiology Lab (WEASEL) with a wildlife biology wet lab and a GIS lab. He also co-founded the interdisciplinary Wildlife Disease Ecology Group (iWEG) at the University of Calgary for the promotion of interdisciplinary research and teaching. In 2016, he has been the Chair of the Wildlife Health Ecology research group at UCVM. Since January 2017 he is Associate professor at the University of Pisa, Italy, where he joined the Ethology Unit at the Department of Biology, but maintained a connection with UofC as an adjunct Professor in Wildlife Health Ecology in the faculties of Veterinary Medicine and of Environmental Design. He is also adjunct at the School for Public Health of the University of Alberta, Canada and Associate Researcher at the UMR CNRS 6249 Chrono-environnement, Université Bourgogne Franche-Comté, Besancon, France.

His research interests are mostly on the ecology of complex systems with a particular focus on terrestrial ecosystems, using biostatistics, and ecological and mathematical modelling, but his research spanned from Ecology and Behavioural ecology, Wildlife management and conservation, to Physiology, applied Mathematics, Information Technologies, and allergology. His current main research projects are on the ecology and dynamics of complex systems, focusing on multi-scale spatial and temporal heterogeneity of ecological processes and patterns in prey-predator and hosts-parasite interactions, as well as of epidemiological processes. In particular, he is currently working on the following research topics: A) ecological interactions affecting gastrointestinal parasites transmission at the interface of wildlife, domestic animals and humans, and on B) the effect of climate and land use changes in arthropod distribution. He is currently coordinating a large interdisciplinary project on the ecology of transmission of gastrointestinal parasites of the genus Echinococcus at the interface with dogs and people in urban landscapes.

He has taught Principles and Advanced Biostatistics in undergraduate and graduate programs since 1995, and General Biology and Ecological Statistics at undergraduate level. At UofC, he taught Spatial analysis in Ecology and Epidemiology, Research Design, One-Health and one course on Ecosystem and Public Health. At UNIPI, he teaches Foundations and Advanced Biostatistics, and a course on Behavioural Ecology.

His laboratory welcomes undergraduate and graduate students from all over the world, and hosts visiting scholars within international research collaborations. So far, he supervised independent and honours projects for about 45 undergraduate students and supervised or co-supervised 30 national and international graduate students.

He has authored and co-authored more than 90 publications and 8 book chapters.