Piermatteo completed his master studies in Linguistics at University College London before joining the lab as a research assistant in 2016, and again in 2017 (mostly based at CIMeC). Piermatteo worked on how different levels of information are integrated in the construction of word meaning in the mind/brain. He addressed this issue by comparing behavioral and neurophysiological data from individuals with very different life experiences, such as sighted and congenitally blind individuals.

Piermatteo moved on the become a PhD student at the Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language (BCBL) in San Sebastian/Donostia, Spain, with Nicola Molinaro.