Diana Paiva obtained her PhD in Chemical and Biological Engineering from University of Porto, Faculty of Engineering at Porto, Portugal, in 2013. She is currently an Assistant Researcher at LEPABE (Laboratory for Process Engineering, Environment, Biotechnology and Energy) and Invited Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Engineering, University of Porto.

Her research interests are focused on polymeric materials, namely natural adhesives, cork and wood composites, low-density starch foams, thermoplastic starches and other composites based on natural fillers. This field of research requires a high knowledge in advanced techniques such as FTIR, NMR, DMA, TGA, DSC, SEM-EDS, X-ray diffraction and injection molding for the characterization of the materials. Her work is published in highly ranked journals in the field (mostly Q1 journals).

Parallel to the research and teaching activities, Diana Paiva also works as Science and Technology Manager at LEPABE. Among others, she is working as a liaison between industry and academia and as manager of the research facilities of LEPABE (equipment’s, research labs and office space). Also, she is responsible to update the contents available at the LEPABE webpage.