Annalisa POLO

Annalisa Polo, born in the province of Lecce, is currently a Postdoctoral Researcher in the Prof. Elena Selli’s group at the University of Milan. Her research interest lies in the field of solar energy conversion and storage into clean chemical fuels, aiming at playing a part in the transition towards a fossil fuel-free, sustainable energy society. She received the PhD in Chemistry and the additional title of Doctor Europaeus from the University of Milan in 2021 under the supervision of Dr. Maria Vittoria Dozzi and Prof. Elena Selli, with a thesis focused on the development of optimized metal oxide-based semiconductor electrodes for photoelectrochemical hydrogen production, after having spent the most of her second PhD year as a visiting researcher in the Laboratory for Molecular Engineering of Optoelectronic Nanomaterials (LIMNO) of Prof. Sivula at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland. In 2021 she was awarded by the Physical Chemistry Division of the Italian Chemical Society with the “Giovanni Semerano 2021” Prize for the best PhD Thesis in Physical Chemistry, and by the Electrochemistry Division of the Italian Chemical Society with the “Fondazione Oronzio e Niccolò De Nora” PhD Thesis Prize. She graduated in Chemistry cum laude in 2016 at the University of Padua, where she also obtained the B.Sc. Degree in Chemistry cum laude. In her master thesis project, under the supervision of Prof. Elisabetta Collini, she devoted to the photophysical characterization of the ultrafast dynamics in artificial antenna chromophores made of suitably functionalized BODIPY dyes, by means of 2D Electronic Spectroscopy. In 2017, after a short period spent in the Institut für Physikalische und Theoretische Chemie at the University of Würzburg (Germany) as a Graduate Research Assistant, she moved to Milan with the achievement of a Post-Graduate Research Fellowship funded by Fondazione Cariplo and Regione Lombardia, finalized at working on the synthesis, characterization and testing of semiconductor photocatalysts for solar fuels applications in the Prof. Elena Selli’s group at the University of Milan. In the same year, she was awarded Young Physico-Chemist 2017 by the Physical Chemistry Division of the Italian Chemical Society.

To date her scientific production consists of 8 peer-reviewed articles in ISI journals and 19 contributions to both national and international conferences. She was the PhD representative for the XXXIII Cycle of the PhD Course in Chemistry (2017–2020 three-year period) at the University of Milan, in addition to being member of the MeetMeOnChem event held at the Chemistry Department of the University of Milan for two academic years (2017-2018 and 2019-2020) and of the organizing committee of the 7^th International Conference on Semiconductor Photochemistry (SP7) held in Milan in 2019. She has supervised the thesis work of Bachelor’s, Master’s and PhD students in the Photocatalysis Group of Prof. Elena Selli at the University of Milan. Moreover, besides her research activity, she accomplished 174 hours of tutoring and teaching to chemistry students in the Physical Chemistry II Course within the Bachelor’s Degree in Chemistry at the University of Milan.

She is a member of the Italian Chemical Society since 2017 and a board-member of the Young Group of the Italian Chemical Society for the 2022-2024 triennium, representing the Physical Chemistry Division. In this 3-years activity, beyond being increasingly committed in supporting and mentoring young chemists, she aims at actively extending and improving the scientific network of the Italian chemists, as well as promoting fruitful collaborations between them, within and outside academia. Besides science, she loves music, playing tennis and travelling.