Profile

I am Italian and I come from Sicily, a sunny and beautiful island in the Mediterranean Sea, where is summer most of the year and where the food is amazing!!

I graduated in Chemistry at the Universitá degli Studi di Catania (Sicily) and then I moved to the north of Italy (Turin) where I got my Master’s degree in Environmental Chemistry. I moved to Ireland in 2018 for my PhD in Environmental Science in the Biological Department and Bernal Institute. In these years, I and my husband (who moved to Ireland from Sicily, from my hometown,  just a few months before than me for his work) have decided to make Ireland our home. We love our Irish life, the food, our friends and our job but of course, we are in love with our motherland <3

I love nature, simply walking along a river or in a forest and enjoying it. I was a scout (with my brother) and during these years I had the most beautiful adventures in the wild nature, exploring, walking and improving my practical abilities. Well, being from Sicily, I couldn’t love the sea and swimming! Summer means SICILIAN holidays on one of the beaches of Mediterraneum.

I have always loved music and singing and for years I have been part of a choir, I also played the piano for years. I also love travel, exploring new places is very exciting for me! I like exploring new cities visiting museums, churches and tasting local food 🙂

My research work focuses on Soil, particularly there are two main areas of interest.

The first one is the chemicals and physical characterization of polluted soil, the assessment of its biological properties using biotest (using the germination and growth of different plant species) and, once the soil is assessed, propose the possible strategies to rehabilitate contaminated soil sites.

The second area is the characterization and the bio-assessments of solid waste, which I aim to use in the creation of “artificial” soil which can be used for different purposes such as urban green space, roofing, or playgrounds.

In practice, after collecting soil samples coming from polluted sites or waste samples, I analyse their properties such as pH, conducibility, heavy metals, nutrient content, particle size, and aggregate formation, and ultimately I assess them using biological tests. These biotests use the germination, development and growth of roots and shoots of different species of plants (grass, clover, lettuce) and help to have a quick understanding of “how” polluted soil can affect plant growth. To determine “how much” the pollution affects plant development, I go deeper with chemical analysis of vegetation (metal, nutrient content, Carbon content)…

After a quick check on my email, I start my experiments and when I obtain the first results (some experiments are quick, others can take days or weeks) I  go to my desk and organize my data in an Excel file, I write the report of my lab time… Sometimes, after a long experiment which took one week, the results that I hoped to obtain were not the ones I got, but this is the research 🙂 and probably the unexpected results are even more interesting and revealing!

The days are more structured during the teaching semesters when I do some lectures.

I try to link the topic of the lecture with my research topic. I would love for students could understand the pragmatism of my research and how much it is for the ENVIRONMENT!