For an engineer, few prospects beat the appeal of getting one’s hands dirty crafting novel technological solutions. Nicolò knows this because he routinely heeds this existential calling. However, a good friend once told him that “as a professional, you create one solution at a time; as a teacher, you can inspire thousands”. This simple but profound idea sparked his passion for Engineering education. 

Nicolò’s teaching approach is centred on dialogue and shared experiences, both in teacher-student and student-student interactions. He favours non-hierarchical learning environments, where students receive theoretical and methodological foundations but are then encouraged to reinforce/extend these through independent enquiry (case studies; projects) and experiential learning (practical labs, co-designed with ANU researchers where possible). Nicolò also encourages students to socialise their journeys and discoveries (course fora; group work; peer assessment), and often adopts Socratic questioning to constructively challenge their understanding. Throughout this process, he acts as a friendly expert, seeking to support and inspire rather than intimidate, and always welcomes students’ challenges to his own explanations. Notably, even amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Nicolò strived to maintain a strong, direct dialogue with his students by developing a custom audiovisual setup that would enable the delivery of more expressive and personable live online sessions. 

Alongside his academic role, Nicolò serves as Chief Technical Officer of a MedTech start-up company. This experience has enriched his teaching, by helping him embed industry-relevant skills into his courses and pair them with motivating real-world examples. Additionally, it informed his redesign of a final-year project course, where he streamlined processes for external projects, resulting in greater uptake of industry-supported topics.  

For Nicolò, it is a privilege to contribute his passion, skills and experience to help inspire the next generation of intelligent yet humble, creative yet pragmatic, industry-ready engineers.

Nicolo has managed to create a fantastic lab-based experience […] by including advanced techniques[…]. These are the kind of experiences that inspire future generations of engineers and researchers.

Colleague email

The course was highly practical in nature and had a good focus on developing skills aiding that purpose. The lecturer also communicated clearly and transparently with the students at almost a peer-to-peer level […] Overall, I feel I learnt a lot during this course […] and I would like to build a career in this field.

Student comment, SELT