Our Team
Prof. Fabrizio Bezzo
Full Professor
Dr. Fabrizio Bezzo is Professor of Chemical Engineering at the University of Padova. He received his degree in Chemical Engineering at the University of Padova and his PhD at Imperial College London (UK). After working for digital technology company in the UK, he joined the University of Padova in 2002. His research interests comprise process and supply chain modeling and optimization in the chemical, pharmaceutical, and energy sectors. He has published over 200 scientific papers in international research journals and conference proceedings. In 2017-2022 he co-chaired the Energy Section of the European Federation of Chemical Engineering.
Dr. Mattia Bruschetta
Assistant Professor
Dr. Mattia Bruschetta received the M.S. Degree (cum laude) in control system engineering in 2007 and the Ph.D. degree in information engineering in 2011, both from the University of Padova (Italy). He held a visiting position at Max Planck Institute in Tubingen and worked on several control applications in the automotive and robotic fields. His research interests include fast nonlinear model predictive control, automotive, virtual prototyping, driving simulators, autonomous driving/riding, system identification, and numerical integration.
Prof. Simone Del Favero
Associate Professor
Prof. Simone Del Favero received his M.S. Degree in Control Engineering and his PhD in Information Engineering from University of Padova (Italy) in 2007 and 2010, respectively. His research interests include data-driven modelling and model-based control of biological systems. He collaborated to the international Artificial Pancreas project, aimed to tackle the challenging biological control problem of regulating blood-glucose in a diabetic patient. He gained experience with the application of Model Predictive Control to complex biological systems. He is co-author of 72 journal papers, 4 book chapters and 4 patents (H-index = 27). Dr. Del Favero served as PI of the Learn4AP project, SIR2014 initiative, MIUR.
Prof. Tomas Morosinotto
Full Professor
Prof. Tomas Morosinotto obtained his PhD in Biotechnology in 2005 at the University of Verona (Italy). After a post-doc fellowship at CEA, Cadarache (France), he was recruited as Permanent CNRS researcher at the LGBP (Laboratoire de Biophysique et Génétique des Plantes) in Marseille, (France). In 2007 he renounced to the position opting for a position ad Department of Biology at University of Padova. He was the recipient of the 2012- 2017 ERC – Starting Grant BioLEAP focusing on the “Biotechnological optimization of light use efficiency in algae photobioreactors”. The national coordinator of two PRIN projects founded by the Italian Ministry of University and Research, Currently partner of 2 H2020 projects (“Gain4Crops Enhancing carbon fixation will boost the production of organic molecules and crop yield, http://gain4crops.eu/”; Best-Crop Boosting photosynthESis To deliver novel CROPs for the circular bioeconomy). He is currently the international coordinator of project “CooCE- Harnessing potential of biological CO2 capture for Circular Economy”. ACT Accelerating CCS Technologies, (https://cooce.eu/). He was PI in several industrial projects on algae biomass exploitation financed by private companies (e.g. TMCI Padovan spa, ENI spa.) His research activity yielded in 122 publications in international peer- reviewed journals. The H index is 42. He is author of 5 patents on industrial exploitation of algae.
Giorgio Perin
Assistant Professor
Dr. Giorgio Perin obtained his PhD in Biochemistry and Biophysics in 2016 at the University of Padova (Italy). In 2017 he moved to Imperial College London (UK) as Research Associate, where he worked on the biotechnological optimization of N- fixing photosynthetic bacteria for a sustainable agriculture. Along this line in 2018 he co-founded an entrepreneurship venture (BIO-F Solutions www.biofsolutions.com) that won the 2018 EIT Global Food Ventures/Entrepreneurship Prizes and currently holds > £75,000 of private funding. In 2020 Giorgio Perin returned to Italy as PI of a project funded by the Italian National Academy (Lincei) and in 2021 he was awarded a STARS@UNIPD Starting Grant worth 160,000 euros. He is currently partner in two PRIN projects, funded by the Italian Ministry of University and Research. He is the author of 18 peer-reviewed publications (11 as first author and one as corresponding, H-index 12). He is also author of one national patent on the industrial exploitation of microalgae.
Prof. Eleonora Sforza
Associate Professor
Prof. Eleonora Sforza graduated in Industrial Biotechnology and she obtained a PhD in Industrial Engineering, curriculum Chemical Engineering. She is responsible of experimental activities in microalgae research at the same Dept. The topics of her projects are related to energetic and environmental applications of microalgae, with a multidisciplinary approach, aimed at understanding and modeling the growth of photosynthetic microorganisms in industrial reactors. She is author of 74 papers (1721 cit, H-index 23) in peer reviewed international journals. She attended to several international conferences with both oral and poster presentations.
Prof. Nicola Trivellin
Associate Professor
Prof. Nicola Trivellin graduated in Electronic Engineering in 2007, and achieved a PhD in Information Science and technologies at University of Padova. During its PhD he spent a research period at Ecole Politechnique Federale de Lausanne (CH). His research interest are the compound semiconductor device characterization and reliability analysis, the development of industrial application based on optoelectronic technologies and innovative measurement techniques. He is author of more than 100 scientific contributions, 1983 citations and H-Index 19; he has obtained the national scientific habilitation as full professor.
Giulio Di Carlo
Ph.D. student
Giulio Di Carlo graduated in Chemical and Process Engineering at the Uninersity of Padua (2024) with a thesis on batch process monitoring. After its graduation he started a Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering investigating digital twins of microalgae growth for process scale-up and optimization. At the moment he is working on modelling microalgae-cyanobacteria consortium.
Samuele Faccin
Ph.D. student
Samuele Faccin is a Ph.D student with a master degree in Biomedical Engineering at the Uninersity of Padua (2023). After its graduation, at the very same university, he was granted a research fellowship for developing model-based control strategies applied to photobioreactors, and now he is working on the same research field under a doctoral fellowship.
Tommaso Storti
Ph.D. student
Tommaso Storti obtained his Master’s degree in Industrial Biotechnology from the University of Padua in 2024, with a thesis focused on the correlation between photosynthesis and nitrogen assimilation in cyanobacteria. Following his graduation, he began a PhD program in Biochemistry and Biotechnology, where he is investigating the molecular pathways of microalgae belonging to the genus Nannochloropsis. His research aims to enhance the industrial cultivation of these microalgae through bioengineering approaches.
Agnese Torrisi
Research assistant
Agnese Torrisi graduated in Industrial Biotechnology at the University of Padua (2023) with a thesis that examined the microalga Chromochloris zofingiensis as a potential platform for the production of biomass for food purposes, with a focus on the production of the pigment astaxanthin. She is currently working as a research assistant at the BIERLAB (Department of Industrial Engineering) with a project focused on the study of the combined effect of light and temperature in high frequency pulsed light regimes on Acutodesmus obliquus.
