VICKY CAPONIGRO | Curriculum

Dr. Caponigro is a researcher in the field of spectroscopy and chemometrics, specializing in data analysis derived from spectroscopy and mass spectrometry. Her work ranges from food safety to the analysis of biopolymers and mass spectrometric data in the medical and pharmaceutical sectors.

She obtained her Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in Biosystems and Food Engineering at the SIRG of University College Dublin (UCD), with a thesis entitled "Multiscale spectral imaging for food safety with relevance to dairy processing" on 18/11/2022, under the supervision of prof. Aoife Gowen. During her PhD, she applied hyperspectral techniques in the dairy industry, analyzing hyperspectral images to distinguish dairy products, determine lactose content in milk, and identify bacteria and biofilms on metal surfaces relevant to the industry.

In 2017, she earned her Master's Degree in Chemistry from the University of Rome "La Sapienza," with a thesis entitled "Chemical imaging and spectroscopy for monitoring stability of hydrogels," under the supervision of prof. Aoife Gowen (UCD) and prof. Federico Marini (La Sapienza), achieving a grade of 106/110. As the winner of the "Torno Subito" scholarship from the Lazio Region, she was able to complete her master's internship at the SIRG group of University College Dublin. For her master's thesis, she studied the interactions of hydrogels with water using NIR imaging, FT-IR, and Raman spectroscopy, utilizing chemometric methods to analyze the spectroscopic data and identify hidden correlations and trends.

In 2013, she obtained her Bachelor's Degree in Chemistry from the University of Rome "La Sapienza," with a thesis entitled "Optimization of extraction procedures and subsequent HPLC determination of Crocin, Picrocrocin, and Safranal in saffron samples," achieving a grade of 93/110, under the supervision of prof. Federico Marini. Her bachelor's internship focused on the extraction of Crocin, Picrocrocin, and Safranal from saffron samples, using experimental design. She studied the influence of extraction parameters such as temperature, time, and solvent, and employed the HPLC-DAD method for the separation and detection of the analytes.

Recently, first as a research fellow and then as an RTd-A at the Department of Pharmacy (DIFARMA) of the University of Salerno, she has developed bioinformatic approaches for the analysis of multi-omic data from mass spectrometric techniques. She has focused her research on tumors of the parotid glands and has created predictive models for various pathologies, including Covid-19.