Constantina Sofroniou
CV
I received my Bachelor’s in Chemistry with specialization in Materials Chemistry in 2016 and my Masters by research in Physical Chemistry in 2018 from the Department of Chemistry of the University of Cyprus. During my Bachelor’s I worked on a research project with title ‘’Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug release from polymer nanofibers generated by electrospinning and the layer-by-layer (LBL) method’’. During my Master’s I worked on a research project with title ‘’ Lanthanide (III) ion adsorption on phospholipid micelles’’. Both of the research projects took place in the laboratory of Physical Chemistry of Colloids and Interfaces under the supervision of Prof. Epameinondas Leontidis. Results of my Master’s work published in 2019 (C. Sofroniou et al., Journal of Colloid and Interface Science 557 (2019) 568). Currently I am in my second year of PhD studies at the Department of Chemistry ‘’Ugo Schiff’’, University of Florence, Italy, under the supervi sion of Prof. Piero Baglioni. My PhD is part of the SAMCAPS project, which is a Marie Skłodowska Curie European Industrial Doctorate (EID) project belonging to the Horizon 2020 framework and it’s based in the collaboration between CSGI – Center for Colloid and Surface Science (Florence, Italy) and the Procter&Gamble company (Brussels, Belgium). My PhD thesis title is ‘’Self-assembly of copolymers and capsule formation in complex fluids’’. The project’s goal is the encapsulation of benefit agents like perfumes, in complex liquid matrices, via the spontaneous self-assembly of biodegradable amphiphilic copolymers with potential use in consumer good products. With the encapsulation of the perfume we will achieve its protection in the polymeric aggregate but in a more environmentally friendly way by using biodegradable polymers. A first publication for my PhD project has been published recently (Mamusa M., Sofroniou C. et al., ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces 2020, 12, 25, 2880 8–28818).
Motivation
For the past four years I have been performing research in the field of colloidal chemistry by working in three different projects within this field. Physical chemistry and particularly Colloids chemistry had been fascinating me since the beginning of my research experience due to my unwavering curiosity and the desire to understand physical and chemical phenomena and to subsequently apply this knowledge to solve societal problems. The 16th European Student Colloid Conference (ESC 2017) was my first conference abroad, and since then I’ve participated in two more conferences organized by the European Colloid and Interface society, in 2018 (Ljubljana) and 2019 (Leuven), where I have been given the opportunity to present my results through poster presentations. Moreover, last year I’ve participated in the training Course ‘’Microfluidics and surface rheology’’ held in KU Leuven before the ECIS conference. In general, my participation in all the conferences, trainings and even ts organized by the European Colloid and Interface society offered me a lot of knowledge about topics related to colloidal chemistry that is my research field. Furthermore, I had the chance to meet a lot of experienced and new researchers from the field and exchange ideas for my project. For this reason, I am motivated to participate in this summer school as I am sure it will enrich even more my knowledge on the topic as the lectures are very interesting and all the lecturers very well recognized.