Luisa Torsi received her PhD degree in Chemical Sciences from the University of Bari in in 1993. She was post-doctoral fellow at Bell Labs from 1994 to 1996. Young scientist has been a full professor of chemistry at the University of Bari since 2005, and from 2017, is adjunct professor at the Abo Akademy University in Finland.
Luisa Torsi principal scientific contributions are in the fields of advanced materials and electronic devices mostly employed for sensing applications. Recently she co-investigated interfacial electronic effects in functional biological systems integrated into organic field-effect transistors (OFETs). Moreover, she has also contributed to the demonstration of the two-dimensional field-induced conductance in OFETs. Torsi has authored 150 ISI papers, including papers published in Science, Nature Materials, Nature Communications, PNAS and is co-inventor of several awarded international patents. She has given more than 150 invited lectures, including almost 20 plenary and key notes contributions to international conferences.
Prof. Torsi is passionate about serving as a role-model for younger women scientists. She has given several talks on this topic, including a TEDx talk, and was also a member of the National Board of the STAGES European project that aims at implementing strategies to trigger structural changes addressing issues connected with gender inequality in science.
Prof. Torsi has won numerous significant accolades over her career, including notching up several firsts as a woman in science. In 2010 she has been awarded with the Heinrich Emanuel Merck prize for analytical sciences, this marking the first time the prestigious award is given to a woman. She is also the recipient of the 2013 “Best Italian Inventor Women” prize of the Italian Women Inventors & Innovators Network (IT–WIIN). She is also past president of the European Materials Research Society, again the first woman to serve in this role. In 2019, she received the IUPAC – International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry Distinguished Women in Chemistry or Chemical Engineering award.