Federico Frau is a Junior Assistant Professor in Linguistics at the Laboratory of Neurolinguistics and Experimental Pragmatics (NEP Lab) of the University School for Advanced Studies IUSS Pavia, as part of the team of the project “DIALOG - Understanding Disorganisation: A Language-focused Global Initiative in Psychosis” (project n. 314138/Z/24/Z, https://dialog.discourseinpsychosis.org/), funded by Wellcome Foundation and coordinated by Prof. Lena Palaniyappan (McGill University, Canada).

He graduated in Linguistic Sciences at the University of Turin in 2019, with a master’s degree thesis on linguistic and communicative impairment in Parkinson’s Disease, in collaboration with the Regional Centre for Parkinson’s Disease and Movement Disorders of the University Hospital “City of Health and Science” of Turin. 
He’s also a former member of the Research Group on Inferential Processes in Social Interaction (GIPSI) of the Department of Psychology of the University of Turin (PI: Prof. Francesca M. Bosco), where he investigated the development and decay of pragmatic abilities from cognitive and clinical perspectives, encompassing the role of neurocognitive and sociocognitive skills. 
In 2024, he obtained a Ph.D. degree in Cognitive Neuroscience and Philosophy of Mind at the University School for Advanced Studies IUSS, defending a thesis on the role of multimodal experience during semantic and pragmatic processing in typical adults, as well as neurological and psychiatric conditions.
Afterwards, he worked as a post-doctoral research fellow at IUSS, within the ERC Consolidator project “PROcessing MEtaphors: Neurochronometry, Acquisition and DEcay (PROMENADE; ID: 101045733; https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101045733), awarded to Prof. Valentina Bambini and funded by the European Research Council.

His current main research activities concern: a) the investigation of the neurophysiological correlates of pragmatic ability, particularly during the processing of figurative language and naturalistic discourse; b) the behavioral and neurophysiological characterization of pragmatic impairment in neurological and psychiatric populations, with a specific focus on schizophrenia; c) the study of the involvement of sensorimotor and bodily experience, as well as visual and motor mental imagery, during the processing of both literal and figurative language, using behavioral and neurophysiological techniques in typical and atypical populations.