Federica Buccino is currently working as a Junior Research Assistant at the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Politecnico di Milano.
After a Double Degree path in collaboration with Alta Scuola Politecnica in Biomedical Engineering, she obtained her PhD cum laude in Mechanical Engineering (Politecnico di Milano) under the guidance of Prof. Laura Maria Vergani. She spent a period abroad at ETH, Zürich, in the group of Prof. Müller.
Her research interests focus on the current challenging field of bone fragility fractures. Specifically, she exploits a multi-disciplinary strategy based on synchrotron scans in combination with micro-mechanical tests to capture real-time bone damage initiation and evolution. Federica’s research strategy considers a novel fracture mechanics-based approach for quantifying the critical stress intensity factor in healthy and diseased trabecular bones. Federica addresses the issue of bone fragility fractures from a dual perspective: prevention and treatment. On the prevention side, she aims at identifying a micro-scale fragility index, to be linked to the clinical practice, by exploiting artificial intelligence tools. On the treatment side, she is currently developing novel constructs for bone repair, which micro-architecture is directly inspired by bone micro-scale interconnectivity, increasing efficacy and cell viability.
Her other research activities are oriented on the design and testing of bio-inspired materials with properties and mechanisms that go far beyond the current know-how of the engineering-materials industry.
Since 2019, Federica has worked as teaching assistant for the courses of Machine Design 2 (Mechanical Engineering) and Mechanical Behavior of Materials (Materials Engineering and Nanotechnology) and she has co-supervised Bachelor and Master students in their academic path.
Federica has been recently awarded with AIAS award (2022, Best Paper), Capocaccia Award (2021, Best Paper, Junior section) and Ermenegildo Zegna scholarship for her period at ETH, Zurich (2020).