Graduated in Chemistry at the University of Parma (Italy), she got her PhD in Chemistry, Technology, and Hygiene of Food (University of Turin, Italy). Assistant professor at the University of Parma, since 2014 is an associate professor of Inspection of Food of Animal Origin.
Visiting scientist at University College Cork (Ireland) and National Veterinary and Food Research Institute (Finland), she has matured a specific experience in meat safety and quality, food product authentication systems, organic and inorganic chemical contaminants in foods, dietary exposure assessment, and risk characterization. She has been principal investigator of research projects funded by the Italian Ministry of University and Research, the European Union-Nextgeneration EU, and the University of Parma. She has participated in several European research programs (FP7, H2020) and national research projects funded by the Ministry of Agricultural, Food and Forestry Policies, Italian Ministry of Health, Emilia-Romagna Region. Manager of research contracts with several companies in the food sector.
Her research activity is focused on food safety and authenticity. Her main interests include 1) the development of analytical tools for authentication and traceability of food based on spectroscopic methods, inorganic multi-elemental analysis, and untargeted metabolomics, coupled to chemometrics and machine learning techniques. In this context, she has developed several applications to discriminate geographical origin and farming systems of fish, seafood, meat and meat products supply chains. ii) determination of organic and inorganic chemical contaminants, assessment of dietary exposure -by deterministic and probabilistic methods-, and risk characterization.
External reviewer for several international journals, referee of research projects at national and international level, and member of the Editorial Board of the Open Food Science Journal, the Italian Journal of Food Safety, and Molecules.
She has been teaching in several courses at the University of Parma, masters, and schools within the food safety area in different Italian and European universities. For several years, she has been a professor at the International Master in Food Technology (MITA) as part of the scientific-academic cooperation agreement between the University of Parma and the University of Buenos Aires. She has been a visiting professor at several European universities and has served on several committees evaluating European doctoral theses.
