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What do you do in your job at the department?
I am the Lab. Manager at the Organic Synthesis laboratory and coordinate the technical aspects of research. I source chemicals, purchase large-scale equipment and manage and maintain them. I am in charge of organising, securing and eventually disposing of the reagents according to the regulations in force. I help manage and maintain the Organic Chemistry Teaching Laboratory and assist in teaching laboratories. I am in charge of specific projects, interacting with research groups inside and outside the university, with international academia and various companies. I work closely with students, for whom I have been dissertation co-supervisor and PhD co-tutor. These activities have led to several scientific publications and patents.

What is one aspect of your job that gives you great satisfaction?
My favourite aspect of my job is the relationship with students. All the students I have worked with in Bachelor internships went on to Master's degrees, in some cases finishing with a PhD. Many of them now hold positions requiring high technical expertise, both in academia and industry. I have the ambition to believe that this is also because of me and my attempt to convey a passion for research, as my professors did with me in their time.

Tell us about yourself and how you got here at Ca' Foscari, and in the department where you work.
I graduated in 1998 in Industrial Chemistry in Professor De Lucchi's Organic Synthesis research group, at the Department of Chemistry, here at Ca' Foscari. After 2 years at the Università Statale di Milano with a research contract, I returned to Venice, and started my PhD with Prof. Lucchini at the Department of Environmental Sciences. At the end of the PhD, after winning several research grants, in 2008 I chose the career of Scientific Technician at the Department of Environmental Sciences. In 2012, with the reorganisation of the University, I moved to the Department of Molecular Sciences and Nanosystems.

Tell us something about your job that you feel has brought some benefit, even the smallest, to the community.
I have always tried to transfer my technical skills to others, especially students, contributing, in part, to the training of future Chemistry PhDs. I hope that in the future the labour market will change its attitude towards technical and experimental skills, considering them equal to organisational and management skills.

What is your favourite motto (saying, quote) that you apply in your job?
“You can't do something without doing something else first” (Arthur Bloch)