Director of the Institute of Marine Science of the National Research Council of Italy. President of the Italian Oceanographic Commission, national body of the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO. In 2021, she is in the Reuters Hot List of the world’s top climate scientists.

Main fields: physical oceanography, Earth Observation, satellite oceanography, operational oceanography, air-sea interaction, physical-biological interaction, and climate variability. She contributed to the design and development of the operational  oceanography and of the European Copernicus Marine Environmental Service. In particular, she developed operational SST and Ocean Colour Observing systems for global ocean and  the Mediterranean Sea. Coordinator and PI of several national and international research projects.

She is/has been member of the Board of several International organizations/panels including GOOS Steering Committee, EuroGOOS and IOC Executive Committee. She signed more than 140 publications in the internationally refereed literature.