Dr Raffaella Villa
Lecturer in Bioprocess Technology
Location: Building 40, Cranfield campus
E: r.villa@cranfield.ac.uk
T: +44 (0)1234 750111 x2320
Environmental Science and Technology
Current activities
Dr Raffaella Villa is the Course Director for Environmental Diagnostics and Management MSc course.
Raffaella's professional interests are related to biocatalysis and applied microbiology. In particular she is interested in: new uses of glycerol for the production of useful products, production of biofuels from renewable and waste materials, “green” chemical processes using renewable feedstocks, new biocatalytic transformations of renewable building blocks.
She has contributed to the risk assessment of anaerobic digestion residues (WRAP) and she is co-supervising an EPSRC case studentship on “Enhanced separation of fat, oil and greases (FOGs) in relation to wastewater”.
Clients
- WRAP
- EPSRC
- ACO drainage.
Background
Dr Raffaella Villa works as a lecturer in Bioprocess Technology in the Centre for Resource Management and Efficiency within the Department of Sustainable Systems.The Centre has an international portfolio of research, postgraduate training and consultancy in waste management and resource efficiency, including waste logistics, impacts of odours from transfer and disposal sites, environmental risk assessment for waste management, the reuse of wastewater treatment sludges, and the thermal processing of wastes. Raffaella is also the Course Director for the Environmental Diagnostics and Management postgraduate programme.
She graduated from the University of Milan in 1992 with a Laureate degree in Food Science and Technology. She spent two years at Exeter University working on enzymatic purification and biocatalysis and then returned to Milan where she obtained her PhD in 1999 on biotransformations with microbial and plant cell cultures. In 2000 she was awarded a Marie Curie Post-Doc Fellowship from the European Union at Stirling University working on the purification of galactomannan synthase.
Her current research interests are across the fields of biocatalysis, fermentations, and resource and energy technology.
Her expertise covers waste/by-products biotransformation, applied biocatalysis, microbial fermentation, enzyme purification, application of novel biocatalysts and screening for new microbial transformations. She has international research collaborations with the University of Milan.
