Chiara Neto is an Italian Australian chemist and Professor of Physical Chemistry at the

University of Sydney The University of Sydney (USYD) is a public university, public research university in Sydney, Australia. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in both Australia and Oceania. One of Australia's six sandstone universities, it was one of the ...

. Her research considers functional nanostructures and the design of new materials for sustainable technologies. She is the former President of the Australasian Colloid and Interface Society and was selected as an

Australian Research Council The Australian Research Council (ARC) is the primary non-medical research funding agency of the Australian Government, distributing more than in grants each year. The Council was established by the ''Australian Research Council Act 2001'', ...

Future Fellow in 2018.

Early life and education

Neto studied chemistry at the

University of Florence The University of Florence ( Italian: ''Università degli Studi di Firenze'') (in acronym UNIFI) is an Italian public research university located in Florence, Italy. It comprises 12 schools and has around 50,000 students enrolled. History The f ...

. She remained there for her doctoral studies. Neto moved to the

University of Ulm Ulm University () is a public university in Ulm, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. The University was founded in 1967 and focuses on natural sciences, medicine, engineering sciences, mathematics, economics and computer science. With 9,891 studen ...

, where she spent a year as a postdoctoral scholar before joining

Saarland University Saarland University (, ) is a public research university located in Saarbrücken, the capital of the German state of Saarland. It was founded in 1948 in Homburg in co-operation with France and is organized in six faculties that cover all major ...

. She moved to Australia in 2003, where she spent three years as an

Fellow at the

Australian National University The Australian National University (ANU) is a public university, public research university and member of the Group of Eight (Australian universities), Group of Eight, located in Canberra, the capital of Australia. Its main campus in Acton, A ...

Research and career

In 2007 Neto was appointed a Lecturer at the

, where was promoted to Full Professor in 2020. Her research considers biomimicry and the creation of functional structures inspired by nature. She has created superhydrophobic surfaces that, imitating a lotus leaf, repel water and keep clean. Such nanostructured materials can be used in situations where repelling liquids and preventing fouling is advantageous, for example, the food industry. In certain scenarios, such as ships moving through water, the flow of fluids against solid surfaces is crucial for performance. By engineering the topography of solid surfaces, Neto can precisely control and study the flow of fluids that interact with them. This allowed Neto to design surfaces layers that allow ships to move efficiently through water, reducing power consumption. Neto has demonstrated that functional coatings can be used to capture atmospheric water from air, reducing humidity and alleviating any

water scarcity Water scarcity (closely related to water stress or water crisis) is the lack of fresh water resources to meet the standard water demand. There are two types of water scarcity. One is ''physical.'' The other is ''economic water scarcity''. Physic ...

Awards and honours

* 2015 Elected President of the Australasian Colloid and Interface Society * 2018

Future Fellowship * 2018 Sydney Research Accelerator (SOAR) Fellowship

Select publications

* * *

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Neto, Chiara Living people Year of birth missing (living people) Italian women chemists University of Florence alumni Academic staff of the University of Sydney Nanotechnologists