Lucia is an Assistant Professor in the School of Biological Sciences at Queen’s University Belfast and in the Department of Chemical Engineering at Imperial College London. She is also Academic Lead for Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) at Queen’s University Belfast.

Other Professional Activities

• 2024 – present, Expert peer reviewer for grant applications to EPSRC, BBSRC and UKRI Future Leaders Fellowships
• 2024 – present, Member of the RSC Protein and Peptide Science Group Committee
• 2023 – present, Co-Director of the Association of Italian Scientists in the UK (AISUK)
• 2023- present, Fellow of the Higher Education Academy
• 2023 – 2024, Member of the RSC Chilterns and Middlesex Local Section Committee
• 2022, Fellow of the European Talent Academy, Networking and Training with the Technical University of Munich (TUM) and Politecnico di Milano (PoliMi)

Awards and Honours

• 2024 Julia Higgins Award, Imperial College London
• 2023 Gold Team Award, Imperial College London
• 2023 Prize for Best Multidisciplinary Talk, Imperial College London
• 2023 Finalist for the PFDC Creating a Positive Research Environment Award, Imperial College London
• 2018 Royal Society of Chemistry Soft Matter Poster Prize, 3rd PepMat Conference, London, UK

Membership of Scientific Societies and Communities

• European Synthetic Cell Initiative
• Italian Society of Chemistry – Società Chimica Italiana
• American Chemical Society
• Association of Italian Scientists in the UK
• Royal Society of Chemistry
• American Peptide Society
• European Peptide Society
• Italian Peptides Society
• Futures AMR Network (FAN)
• COST Action CA23111: Nanostructured or pOre fOrming Peptides for therapY (SNOOPY)

Previous Research Experience

• 2021-2024, Research Associate in Process Systems Engineering, Department of Chemical Engineering, Imperial College of London
• 2019-2021, Research Associate in Organic and Biological Chemistry, School of Chemistry, University of Bristol, UK
• 2018-2019, Research Associate in Nanomedicine, Department of Pharmacy, University of Tours, France
• 2017-2018, Research Associate in Organic and Biological Chemistry, Department of Pharmacy, University of Naples “Federico II”, Italy
• 2017, Research Associate in Microbiology, Department of Pediatrics, Columbia University, New York
• 2013, Summer Internship, IIT@CRIB, Center for Advanced Biomaterials for Healthcare, Naples, Italy
• 2012, Placement, Institute von Laue-Langevin, Grenoble, France

Qualifications

• 2013 – 2016, PhD in Biochemical and Biotechnological Sciences, University of Campania “Luigi Vanvitelli”, Italy
• 2010-2013, Master’s Degree in Chemistry, University of Naples “Federico II”, Italy
• 2007-2010, Bachelor’s Degree in Chemistry, University of Naples “Federico II”, Italy