Umberto Villani was born in Venice in 1993. He achieved his Bachelor Degree in Information Engineering in February 2016 and his Master Degree in Bioengineering in September 2018, both from University of Padova, Italy.

His Master thesis concerns the applicability and reliability of microstructural models applied to oncological patients in the field of diffusion-based magnetic resonance imaging (dMRI).

He is currently a PhD student in Neuroscience (XXXIV cycle) at the University of Padova, under the supervision of Prof. Alessandra Bertoldo and the co-supervision of Prof. Michel Thiebaut de Schotten. 

His main scientific research area regards modellistic development, validation and clinical application of novel dMRI-based techniques targeted to describe structural features of the human brain, with particular interest to the case of brain tumours.