Introducing our new scientific staff member Patrizio Raffa

ENTEG is proud to introduce Dr Patrizio Raffa as new tenure track assistant professor in Polymeric Products. Patrizio Raffa recently started his research in the research group of Prof dr. F. Picchioni.

Patrizio was born and raised in Pescara (Italy). He moved to Pisa (Italy) for his studies in chemistry, after winning a scholarship at the prestigious Scuola Normale Superiore (SNS). He graduated in organic chemistry both at SNS and university of Pisa cum laude in 2004 with a thesis on organosilicon compounds, then he completed a PhD in chemistry cum laude in SNS, working on the preparation of transition metal nanoparticles and their application in catalysis. After an internship at Ircelyon (Institut de recherches sur la catalyse et l'environnement de Lyon, part of the CNRS), he returned to Pisa where he developed his post-doctoral research on polymeric materials for industrial applications from 2008 to 2010, first at CNR-INFM Polylab and then at the University of Pisa, in the group of Prof. F. Ciardelli.

In 2011 he joined the research group of Prof. F. Picchioni at the University of Groningen as post-doc, working mainly on polymeric surfactants for enhanced oil recovery and thermally reversible polymeric materials. His current interests are in developing new multifunctional polymeric materials with rheological and interfacial properties of interest for industrial applications. Particular emphasis is given to amphiphilic polymers with well-defined and tailored structures (obtained via controlled polymerization methods such as ATRP and RAFT) for the study of structure-properties relationships. He also recently started investigating the exploitation of monomers and polymers derived from natural sources, with the goal of designing more sustainable polymeric products for industrial uses.