Federica Pizzullli

Federica Pizzulli earned an M.Sc. in Marine Biology from Marche Polytechnic University in Italy and completed her Ph.D. through a collaborative program between The Open University (UK) and the affiliated research center Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn in Naples (Italy). Her doctoral research focused on the nervous system of the common octopus, integrating neuroanatomical, molecular, and computational approaches to map neural circuits and characterize neuromodulatory systems. She then conducted postdoctoral research at Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn, investigating the enteric nervous system of cephalopods and its gene expression responses to environmental stressors.

Federica joined the Holford Lab at Harvard University in 2025, where she studies how cephalopod nervous systems regulate venom production and release in the posterior salivary glands. Her work integrates histology, immunohistochemistry, neural tracing, advanced microscopy, and molecular analyses to understand the neural control of venom systems and enable comparisons with other marine venom-producing organisms.