Alessia Romani is a Ph.D.candidate in Design at the Design Department of Politecnico di Milano, and she currently works as a post-graduate researcher at the Department of Chemistry, Materials and Chemical Engineering “Giulio Natta” of the same university. Her main research interests focus on the interdisciplinary connection between Design, Materials, Additive Manufacturing and Circular Economy. She aims at bridging design and engineering through the lenses of materials and digital technologies.

Also, she is interested in design strategies and approaches to additive manufacturing (i.e., Open Source); new materials, finishing, and expressive-sensorial qualities for design and additive manufacturing; parametric and computational design; design for sustainability and circular economy.

Alessia is currently part of +LAB, the 3D printing lab of Politecnico di Milano (https://piulab.it). and she joined the Materials Experience Lab after the beginning of her Ph.D. path (http://materialsexperiencelab.com). She has been actively involved in design and materials engineering research projects, i.e., “FiberEUse - Large scale demonstration of new circular economy value-chains based on the reuse of end-of-life fiber reinforced composites” (H2020 EU Funded project) and “+Ability” (Codesign of 3D Printed Customized Assistive Technology for daily life needs).

Through her research experience, she can merge design research and materials engineering, gaining expertise at the intersection of the two disciplines. She also collaborates as a teaching assistant and co-supervises the MSc thesis of the two disciplinary fields (MSc in Design & Engineering, BSc and MSc in Materials and Nanotechnology Engineering). Moreover, she has authored publications in peer-reviewed journals, participated in international conferences and organized workshops and events focused on 3D printing, materials, and design.