Roberto Bonasio grew up in Northen Italy, studied at the University of Milan, and received his Ph.D. in immunology from Harvard in 2006. He obtained further postodctoral training at NYU in the laboratory of Danny Reinberg, studying chromatin biochemistry and functional genomics. At NYU, Roberto studied the function of noncoding that RNAs that interact with epigenetic regulators in embryonic stem cells. He also led an international team that sequenced and analyzed the first ant genomes and methylomes, laying the foundations for using social ants as a model system to study the epigenetics of behavior. In 2014, Roberto joined the Epigenetics Program at the University of Pennsylvania, where his laboratory studies the molecular mechanisms of epigenetics in mammalian stem cells and neuron as well as various emerging model organisms, such as ants and planarians.