Silvana Nicola, Prof.
Silvana Nicola has an MSc in Agricultural Science, from the University of Turin, Italy (1988), and a PhD in Horticulture, from the University of Florida, USA (1997). She is Full Professor at the University of Turin, Italy, and research leader in Vegetable Crops and Medicinal & Aromatic Plants (VEGMAP).
Her activities include teaching at home University and at other universities around the world. Dr. Nicola has been supervisor or external examiner of domestic and foreign PhD students and Postdoctoral fellows, visiting from several countries. Her research focuses on the effect of pre-harvest environmental factors on quality and safety of fresh and fresh-cut produce, especially leafy vegetables and culinary herbs grown with advanced soilless systems, on fresh-cut produce chain and aromatic plant production and post-harvest processes. Bioactive compound synthesis in plants due to fertilization management and abiotic stresses on quality at harvest and post-harvest quality decay and shelf-life is a current field of studies. Dr. Nicola has worked since 1988 in Horticultural Science and Development on seedling and transplant biology and physiology, soil and soilless culture, protected cultivations, pre- and post-harvest handling and processing, post-harvest physiology and technology, quality and safety, and supply chain management. She has developed Lab Scale Pilot Plants (LSPP) for hydroponic cultivation: a Floating Growing System, a New Growing System and an Indoor Container Farm.
Dr. Nicola is Chief Editor of Springer ‘Advances in Olericulture’, member of the Editorial Board of the ‘Turkish Journal of Agriculture & Forestry’, of the journal ‘Horticulturae’, and of the ‘Journal of Horticulture and Postharvest Research’. Section Editor of ‘Horticulturae’ for Section ‘Protected Culture’ and ‘Medicinals, Herbs, and Specialty Crops’, member of the Advisory Board of the ‘European Journal of Horticultural Science’. Associate Editor of the Bulgarian Journal of Soil Science, Agrochemistry and Ecology.
