MD, psychiatrist and psychotherapist, scientific director of the Research and Clinical Centre (CREA) of Fondazione San Sebastiano, Misericordia di Firenze, Florence, Italy. Adjunct professor at the University of Florence, and teacher in several Italian and international courses. President of the Italian Society for Neurodevelopmental Disorders and past president of the section Psychiatry of Intellectual Disability of the WPA (World Psychiatric Association) and the European Association for Mental Health in Intellectual Disability. Chair of the WPA Working Group on Autism Spectrum Disorder. Member of the Working Group on Classification of Intellectual Disabilities of the WHO International Advisory Group for the revision of ICD-11 and the Development Group for Autism Spectrum Disorders to the creation of the WHO Package of Interventions for Rehabilitation. Editorial board member of several scientific journals in the field and author of around 250 journal articles and book chapters. Since 2017, member of the scientific committee of the Italian Observatory for Disabilities and expert for the Ministry of Health. In 2011 he was awarded an Honorary Membership by the WPA for excellence in service, and in 2023 he received the Presidential Commendation for extraordinary contributions to the WPA and the advancement of psychiatry and mental health across the world. In 2021 he received the Leon Eisenberg Award of the Harvard Medical School for outstanding leadership and stewardship.