ELENA GOTTARDINI

Research activity

Since 1989 Elena has been working on environmental issues. Her research activity focuses on:

• aerobiology, pollen, allergy, human health
• development and application of bio-indication techniques to study the effect of different environmental stress 
• levels and impacts of tropospheric ozone on vegetation
• quality assurance of environmental data.

Research interests

The main research interests are on:

a) the interaction between plants and the environment;

b) identification and testing of bio-indicators; 

c) pollen risk evaluation and development of communication tools in relation to allergic symptomatology prevention.

Elena studied Biological Sciences at the University of Bologna, Italy, where she obtained her master of science in 1988. Her pre-bachelor and internship research was in plant pathology and concerned the induction of resistance to virus. She is attending the PhD on plant eco-physiology at the University of Florence, carrying out a research on the morphological, physiological and genetic responses of plants to ozone.