I am interested in the microscopic description of strongly interacting quantum systems, especially in ultracold atomic gases and topologically non-trivial matter. Most of my recent interests are concerned with the effective description of low-energy few-body degrees of freedom in reduced dimensions, starting from fully microscopic models. Even if a system looks strongly interacting -- such as ensembles of 4He atoms confined in a tube -- its few-body phenomenology might actually suggest an effective, weakly interacting description. On the other hand, certain effects in strongly-interacting many-body systems can be explained solely in terms of the solution to the few-body problem. Other research interests include linear and non-linear optical realisation of synthetic quantum systems.