Full professor of Mathematical Physics since 1994, his scientific interests mainly lie in the mathematical modelling of soft matter, including thermotropic liquid crystals and lyotropic systems, such as lipid membranes. He is author of nearly 130 scientific papers published in international journals, and two monographs: one, entitled 'Variational problems for liquid crystals', was published in 1994 by Chapman & Hall, the other, written in collaboration with A.M. Sonnet is entitled 'Dissipative ordered fluids' was published in 2012. In 1995, he was awarded the scientific prize 'Bruno Finzi' by the 'Istituto Lombardo di Scienze e Lettere'. In July 1999, he delivered a keynote lecture at the ICIAM99 in Edinburgh on the role of mathematical models in the industrial applications of liquid crystals. In July 2002, he gave a general lecture at the 19th International Liquid Crystal Conference, held in Edinburgh. He was also appointed as member of the International Advisory Committee of this Conference and served on the same Committee for the International Liquid Crystal Conference held in Ljubljana in 2004. He has been invited to deliver a general lecture at the 9th European Conference on Liquid Crystals held in Lisbon in 2007; he also served in the Scientific Committee of that conference. The same invitation was renewed for the 11th European Conference on Liquid Crystals held in Maribor in 2011. Since year 2006 he serves on the Scientific Council of the Italian Liquid Crystal Society. In 2013 he held the Microsoft Fellowship at the Isaac Newton Institute of Cambridge, participating in the Programme on the 'Mathematics of Liquid Crystals'. He was a member of the Scientific Committee for the International Liquid Crystal Conference held in Kent (OH,USA) in 2016, which also marked the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Liquid Crystal Institute. He also delivered an invited talk in that Conference. He is currently a member of the Editorial Board of the Archive for Rational Mechanics and Analysis.

As of April 26th 2017, the Web of Science lists 139 of his published works from all databases with a total of 1776 citations (1474 without self citations) granting an H-index of 24.