Valentina Tozzini

Short Bio

Education
1993: Laurea (Master Degree) in Physics, Università di Pisa, Italy
1993: Diploma di Licenza in Fisica, Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa
1997: PhD in Physics, Scuola Normale Superiore
1999: Medical Physics Specialization, Università di Pisa

 

Career
1997 - 1999: Post-Doc felloship (INFM-SNS, Pisa)
1999 - 2000: Visiting researcher at the University of Nijmegen (NL)
2000 - 2003: Scientist at NEST-INFM, SNS, Pisa
2003 - 2004: Visiting Scholar at the University of California - San Diego
2003 - 2009: Research Scientist at NEST-CNR-INFM, SNS, Pisa
2010 - 2021: Senior Research Scientist at NEST-CNR-Istituto Nanoscienze, SNS, Pisa
2021 - present: Research Director at CNR-Istituto Nanoscienze, NEST-SNS, Pisa

 

Memberships, assignments, responsibilities
2024 - : INFN research associate, CSN V, Section of Pisa
2023 - : Member of the Scientific board of DSFSM Department of CNR
2021 - : Member of the Interdisciplinary Group on Science, Technology and Society of CNR (Area-Pisa)
2020 - : Member of the Institute Board of Istituto Nanoscienze - CNR
2018 - : Member of the Marie Curie Alumni Association (MCAA)
2017 - : National Habilitation as Full Professor of Applied Physics and Condensed Matter Physics (Theory)
2010 - : Panel member for grants of national research programmes of EU countries, Remote reviewer for ERC starting grants
2009 - : Adjunct prof of Biophysics, Numerical methods and Structure of matter dept of Physics Univ of Pisa
2007 - : Panel member for assignment of HPC resources within PRACE and ISCRA programmes 
2000 - : PhD and Master degree committees

Research Interests

Multi-scale modelling, combining Density Functional Theory, (reactive) classical Molecular Dynamics and Coarse Grained models with advanced sampling methods. Current applications are both to materials and biomolecular systems:

  • Characterization of graphene and reduced graphene oxide materials for green hydrogen cycle
  • Design of tritium trapping graphene based architectures for neutrinos detection
  • Nano-porous graphene materials of bio-origin for water desalinization and purification
  • Design and study of layered graphene-semiconducting structures
  • Coarse grained models of charged polymers for thermoelectric devices
  • Functionalized nanoparticles for theranostics of amyloidosis
  • Design of microRNA sensors
  • Intra-cell radiobiological effects of high dose rate radiations
  • Design of proteins chimeric constructs for virus detection and inhibition

See also https://green.nano.cnr.it and https://bio.nano.cnr.it/

Selected Recent Projects

PRIN MONolithic STRain Engineering platform for TWO-Dimensional materials (MONSTRE 2D)
Light to Store chemical Energy in reduced Graphene Oxide for electricity generation (FET-ProAct) https://lesgo-project.eu/

Selected Publications

M Bini, V Tozzini, G Brancolini Deconstructing Electrostatics of Functionalized Metal Nanoparticles from Molecular Dynamics Simulations J Phys Chem B (2023)

F Del Debbio, MS Bertilacchi, A Gonnelli, E Da Pozzo, V Tozzini, C Martini, S Capaccioli, B Costa An insight into hypothesized biological mechanisms contributing to the Flash effect Front Phys (2023)

S Ozden, S Monti, V Tozzini, NS Dutta, S Gili, N Caggiano, AJ Link, NM Pugno, J Higgins, RD Priestley, CB Arnold Egg protein derived ultralightweight hybrid monolithic aerogel for water purification Mater Today (2022)

A Apponi, […] V Tozzini, Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle in the PTOLEMY project: A theory update et al  Phys Rev D (2022)

Delfino, Y. Porozov, E. Stepanov, G. Tamazian, and V. Tozzini, Evolutionary Switches Structural Transitions via Coarse-Grained Models, J Comput Biol (2020)

Brancolini and V. Tozzini, Multiscale modeling of proteins interaction with functionalized nanoparticles, Curr Opin Coll Int Sci (2019)

Cavallucci, Y. Murata, M. Takamura, H. Hibino, S. Heun, and V. Tozzini, Unraveling localized states in quasi free standing monolayer graphene by means of Density Functional Theory, Carbon (2018)

Cavallucci and V. Tozzini, Multistable Rippling of Graphene on SiC: A Density Functional Theory Study, J Phys Chem C (2016)

Bonaccorso, L. Colombo, G. Yu, M. Stoller, V. Tozzini, A. C. Ferrari, R. S. Ruoff, and V. Pellegrini, Graphene, related two-dimensional crystals, and hybrid systems for energy conversion and storage, Science (2015)