Pietro Califano is a PhD student in Aerospace Engineering at DART Lab, Politecnico di Milano. His research focuses on visual navigation, SLAM, computer vision, and multi-sensor state estimation, with particular interest in factor-graph methods and integrated navigation architectures. He primarily develops these methods for autonomous spacecraft navigation, especially for the exploration and characterization of small bodies and other poorly known, GNSS-denied environments. His work spans the navigation stack, from visual frontends and geometric vision to nonlinear estimation, simulation, validation, and algorithm deployment. His broader interests include event-based vision, machine learning for navigation and perception, and physically based rendering. He also places particular emphasis on developing reusable and well-designed scientific software alongside his research. Originally from Castellammare di Stabia, Italy, Pietro obtained his BSc in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Naples Federico II in 2021 and later pursued an MSc in Space Engineering at Politecnico di Milano. During his MSc, he contributed to the PoliSpace 6S CubeSat project as a member and later leader of the AOCS team. In 2023, he spent six months at ESA ESTEC working within the Hera mission GNC team. His MSc thesis, *HERA Mission Trajectory Safety Assessment Through On-Board Failure Detection*, focused on autonomous navigation and trajectory safety around small bodies. Pietro joined DART Lab as a PhD student in December 2023. In 2026, he spent 6 months at DFKI Robotics Innovation Centre extending his research expertise to state estimation applied to humanoid robots. One of his favourite quotes is from Richard Feynman: *“Study hard what interests you the most in the most undisciplined, irreverent and original manner possible.”*