Fields of Interest and Expertise

analytical chemistry, device enabling precision medicine and agricolture, bioelectronics, biosensing,  

Teaching

1998 – Spectroscopic Analysis, Bachelor Course in Material Science, Physics Department

1998 – Surface Analysis, for the Master Course in Material Science & Technology, Chemistry Department

Curriculum Vitae

Luisa Torsi received her Laurea degree in Physics from the University of Bari in 1989 and a Ph.D. in Chemical Sciences from the same institution in 1993. She was a post-doctoral fellow at Bell Labs from 1994 to 1996. In 2005 and 2006 she was invited professor at the University of Anger and Paris 7, respectively. Since 2005 she is a full professor of chemistry at the University of Bari and since 2017 she is an adjunct professor at the Abo Academy University in Finland.

In 2010 she has been awarded the Heinrich Emanuel Merck prize for analytical sciences, this marking the first time the award is given to a woman. Prof. Luisa Torsi is also the winner of the Wilhelm Exner Medal 2021 (https://www.wilhelmexner.org/en/). The medal has been awarded since 1921 by the Austrian Association of Industries to celebrate excellence in research and science and as many as 23 Nobel prize winners have been awarded too. She is also the recipient, at the British Library in London, of the 2015 main overall platinum prize of the Global-Women Inventors and Innovators Network. The IUPAC - International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry awarded her with the 2019 Distinguished Women in Chemistry or Chemical Engineering. The analytical chemistry division of the European Chemical Society (EuChemS) conferred her the Robert Kellner Lecturer 2019.

Since 2020 she has been appointed National Representative for the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Action of Horizon Europe by the Italian Minister for Education and Research. She is also past president of the European Material Research Society being the first women to serve on this role. She has been also elected 2017 Fellow of the Material Research Society, for pioneering work in the field of organic (bio) electronic sensors and their use for point-of-care testing.

Awarded research funding for over 26 million € in thirteen years, comprises several European contracts as well as national and regional projects. She is coordinating the “Single molecule bio-electronic smart system array for clinical testing – SiMBiT” a H2020-ICT-2018-2020 research and innovation action financed with over 3 M€. The PRIN 17 national project “ACTUAL: At the forefront of Analytical ChemisTry: disrUptive detection technoLogies to improve food safety (2017RHX2E4)” is also coordinated by Torsi. She has also coordinated a “European Industrial Doctorate” Marie Curie project in collaboration with Merck and was principal investigator in a Marie Curie ITN. She has also coordinated a Marie Curie ITN European network, several national PRIN projects, and was principal investigator in an ICT STREP proposal. She has also been the scientific coordinator of a Structural Reinforcement PON Project awarded to UNIBA for 2012-2014 and is engaged with a number of other Structural Reinforcement PON projects.

Torsi has authored almost 230 ISI papers, including papers published in Science, Nature Materials, Nature Communications, PNAS, Advanced Materials, Scientific Reports, and is co-inventor of several international awarded patents. Her works gathered almost 14.000 Google scholar citations resulting in an h-index of 56. She has given more than 170 invited lectures, including almost 50 plenary and keynotes contributions to international conferences.

Prof. Torsi is committed to the role of model for younger women scientists. She has been giving several talks on this topic such as a TEDx talk. Prof. Torsi is one of the 100Experts (https://100esperte.it) a project led by Fondazione Bracco comprising an online databank with the names and CVs of female experts in STEM, a sector historically underrepresented by women but a strategic one for the economic and social development of Italy. In a recent campaign to foster the idea of gender equality in science among children, prof. Torsi was featured in a story of TOPOLINO (Italian comic digest-size series of Disney comics), as “Louise Torduck”, a successful female scientist of the Calisota valley.

Awards

2021    Wilhelm Exner Medal 2021 attribuita per i suoi contributi pionieristici nell’ambito bioelettronica organica. La medaglia è assegnata dal 1921 dall'Associazione Austriaca delle piccole e medie imprese per celebrare l'eccellenza nella ricerca e nella scienza ed è conferita alla presenza del Ministro della scienza e della ricerca Heinz Fassmann e del Presidente austriaco Alexander Van der Bellen che ospiterà un ricevimento presso il Palazzo imperiale Hofbur. La sua ricerca, recita la motivazione, combina in modo trasversale sensori elettronici ed elettrochimici, chimica analitica, semiconduttori organici, fisica dei dispositivi a stato solido, chimica dei materiali e fisica. Essendo in prima linea in una delle direzioni di ricerca in più rapida crescita nell'ambito dell’elettronica organica, le sue scoperte promettono nuove tecnologie per l'assistenza sanitaria e il benessere umano. Il premio è stato in passato vinto da 21 premi Nobel, fra cui scienziati del calibro di Guglielmo Marconi, William Shockley, Charles hard Townes, Karl Ziegler, Ted Hänsch ed Emmanuelle Charpentier https://www.wilhelmexner.org/en/ .

2020    Medaglia Canneri assegnata dalla Divisione di Chimica Analitica della Società Chimica Italiana per essersi particolarmente distinta per ricerche nel settore della Chimica Analitica https://www.soc.chim.it/it/divisioni/analitica/medaglie_premi_2020

2019    Alto Riconoscimento “Virtù e Conoscenza” - IV edizione; assegnazione Premio Speciale “Mare Nostrum” - MediterraneaMente (Associazione di Promozione Sociale) per l’umiltà e genialità, per l’impegno proteso alla ricerca del benessere della persona, per aver inventato, con la sua equipe, un dispositivo bio-elettronico che ha rivoluzionato e resa precoce la diagnostica di malattie progressive e neurodegenerative” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCbDKAB-bkM

2019    Robert Kellner Lecture della European Chemical Society Division of Analytical Chemistry che premia chi ha dato un contributo sostanziale al progresso della ricerca o della didattica in chimica analitica https://www.euchems.eu/divisions/analytical-chemistry/honours/  https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00216-019-02373-1

2019    Outstanding Women of Southern Italy - Department for International Trade - UK Government Science and Innovation Network https://twitter.com/tradegovukITA/status/1104049783617044480/photo/2

2019    IUPAC (international Union for Pure and Applied Chemistry) Distinguished Women in chemistry or chemical engineering; il premio riconosce e promuove il lavoro delle donne che si occupano di chimica in tutto il mondo. Le vincitrici sono selezionate in base all'eccellenza nella ricerca di base o applicata, ai risultati nell'insegnamento o nell'istruzione così come in base alla dimostrazione di leadership o eccellenza manageriale nelle scienze chimiche. https://iupac.org/iupac-2019-distinguished-women/

2018    Relazione Plenaria in occasione dell’inaugurazione dell’A.A del Dipartimento di Chimica dell’Università di Torino https://www.unito.it/eventi/il-dipartimento-di-chimica-dedica-linaugurazione-dellaa-2018-2019-al-tema-del-crescente-ruolo

2018    Medaglia d’argento della Società Chimica Italiana conferita al Merck & Elsevier Young Chemistry Symposium del “SCI Gruppo Giovani” 

2017    Eletta Fellow della Material Research Society per il lavoro pionieristico nel campo sensori elettronici bio-organici e il loro uso per nel point-of-care testing https://mrs.org/careers-advancement/awards/spring-awards/mrs-fellows/list-of-mrs-fellows/2017

2017    Premio Donna di Eccellenza - Lions Club International – Distretto 108 Ab – Zone V

2015    Overall platinum International European Women Inventors & Innovators Network Award per i dispositivi biomedicali che sta sviluppando http://www.euwiininternational.eu/previous-winners/

2013    Migliore inventrice italiana conferito dalla Italian Women Inventors & Innovators Network https://www.itwiin.org/en/albo/hall-of-fame-2013.html

2010    Premio Rosa Marina (Brindisi) che riconosce le eccellenze della regione Pugliahttps://www.brundisium.net/notizie/shownotiziaonline.asp?id=32199

2010    Heinrich Emanuel Merck Award conferito dalla omonima multinazionale farmaceutica che premia gli scienziati che stanno sviluppando metodi chimico-analitici innovativi con applicazioni che mirano a migliorare la qualità vita. E’ stata la prima donna a vincere questo riconoscimento https://www.merckgroup.com/en/research/grants-and-awards/heinrich-emanuel-merck-award.html

2008    Secondo Premio per la migliore presentazione al Meeting della Società Italiana di Fisicahttps://www.sif.it/attivita/congresso/xciv/comunicazioni

Unit

• Bari

Publications