Hello! 👋

I'm Alessandro Ruzza

PhD Researcher @ UNIMI
Developer of DBNets.it

About Me

Ph.D researcher in astrophysics at the University of Milano, working on protoplanetary discs, planet formation and automatic methods for the characterization of young planets. I run numerical simulations of protoplanetary disc models, use and develop deep learning models for simulation-based inference (SBI) and apply the developed pipelines to actual observations.

SBI AI/ML Numerical modelling Protoplanetary disks Planet-disk interaction

Publications

exp. 2026

exoALMA XXII. Estimating Disk and Planet Properties from Dust Morphologies with DBNets 2.0

A. Ruzza, G. Lodato, G. P. Rosotti, P. J. Armitage, S. Facchini, S. M. Andrews, J. Bae, M. Barraza-Alfaro, M. Benisty, P. Curone, A. F. Izquierdo, C. Longarini, C. Pinte, J. Stadler, R. Teague, J. Terry, D. J. Wilner, A. J. Winter, T. C. Yoshida, B. Zawadzki; Submitted to ApJL for the exoALMA focus issue.

SBI ApplicationDisks dust substructures

Aug 2025

DBNets2.0: Simulation-based inference for planet-induced dust substructures in protoplanetary discs

A. Ruzza, G. Lodato, G. P. Rosotti, and P. J. Armitage; A&A, 700, A190 (2025)

SBINormalizing flowsHydrodynamic simulationsDisks dust substructures

May 2024

DBNets: A publicly available deep learning tool to measure the masses of young planets in dusty protoplanetary discs

A. Ruzza, G. Lodato, and G. P. Rosotti; A&A, 685, A65 (2024)

SBICNNHydrodynamic simulationsDisks dust substructures

Jul 2025

Unveiling a protoplanet candidate embedded in the HD 135344B disk with VLT/ERIS

F. Maio, D. Fedele, V. Roccatagliata, S. Facchini, G. Lodato, S. Desidera, A. Garufi, D. Mesa, A. Ruzza, C. Toci, L. Testi, A. Zurlo, and G. P. Rosotti; A&A, 699, L10 (2025)

DBNets2.0Disks dust substructures

Jul 2024

Planet-driven spirals in protoplanetary discs: Limitations of the semi-analytical theory for observations

D. Fasano, A. J. Winter, M. Benisty, G. Rosotti, A. Ruzza, G. Lodato, C. Toci, T. Hilder, A. Izquierdo, and D. Price; A&A, 687, A223 (2024)

Hydrodynamic simulationsPlanet-disk interaction

Experience

Ph.D. Researcher

Università degli Studi di Milano (Italy)

Oct 2023 - Present

Supervisors: Prof. Giuseppe Lodato and Prof. Giovanni Pietro Rosotti.
Project: 'Design of simulation-based inference methods for the characterisation of young planets from dust morphologies and kinematical signatures in discs'

Summer research intern

European Southern Observatory (ESO, Garching, Germany)

Jun 2023 - Aug 2023

Fully funded six-week research programme.
Project: Reflection Nebulae as signposts of young star interactions with molecular clouds. In this project, I compiled a dataset of reflection nebulae close to YSO in the Corona Australis star-forming region. I then performed some analysis of this dataset and started developing an automatic way to look for reflection nebulae in other star forming regions.

Education

Master’s degree in physics

Università degli Studi di Milano (Italy)

Oct 2021 - Jul 2023

Graduated 110/110 cum laude
Astrophysics and data physics curriculum. Focus on protoplanetary discs, data analysis and machine learning
Thesis: 'DBNets: a deep learning tool to characterize young planets in dusty discs'. Supervisors: Prof. Giuseppe Lodato, Prof. Giovanni Rosotti. This work led to one publication (Ruzza et al., 2024) and the tool developed was made public. It is a follow-up of my bachelor’s thesis with improved data, the addition of an uncertainty quantification method and the evaluation of how different factors contribute to the prediction error.