mauro ferrari

Silvia Gross, born 1971, graduated in Chemistry at the University of Padova in 1996. At the same university she earned her graduate degree in Chemistry in 2000. Author of 30 scientific publications in international peer-reviewed journals, she participated as speaker, invited speaker or poster presenting author to over 40 international conferences.
In 2001 she got a position as Ricercatore at Institute of Molecular Sciences and Technologies (ISTM) of the Italian National Research Council (CNR). Since 2001 she works in Vienna and her scientific activity is at present carried out as post-doc at the Institute of Materials Chemsitry of the Vienna University of Technology, in the framework of a “Lise Meitner” Programm of the Austrian Scientific Foundation (Förderung der Wissenschaftilichen Forschung FWF). During her scientific studies, she spent, within the Erasmus scheme of the European Community, three months in Göttingen (Germany) at the Insitut für Organische Chemie of the Georg- August University and three months at the Vienna University of Technology.
Her scientific interest is mainly devoted to the research in the field of sol-gel synthesis and characterisation of thin layers either of metal oxide and/or silica containing semiconductor (oxide and sulphide) nanoclusters. Her activity is at present focused on the development of organic-inorganic hybrid materials embedding nanosized transition metal oxoclusters. In this latter field, in collaboration with the group of Prof. Ulrich Schubert at the Vienna University of Technology, she pioneered the use of organically modified transition metal (namely Ta, Zr, Hf) polyoxometallates as molecular building blocks for the development of novel hybrid material endowed with improved thermal, mechanical, electrical properties.
Beyond the scientific activity, her interest is also devoted to an intense journalistic activity. She currently collaborates with the newspaper “Il Gazzettino”, with the magazine “InFormazione” and with some scientific web sites. She is author of over 800 papers concerning university and research.