Dr Claudia Di Napoli

• Research in heatwave and pollution-related health hazards

• Climatology, forecast and impact of extreme events
• Development of early warning systems for weather hazards

Environmental Science Research Division

Key Facts:

Claudia Di Napoli graduated from University of Padua (Italy) in 2007 with a BSc in Astronomy and 2010 with a MSc (cum laude) in the same subject, with specialisation in planetary physics. In 2010 Claudia moved to Cardiff University (UK) where she was awarded with a President's Research scholarship, and received her Ph.D. degree in Applied Physics in 2014.

From 2014 to 2016 Claudia worked at Meteotrentino, Italian Civil Protection as research meteorologist for the European LIFE+-funded CLEAN-ROADS project. She investigated how weather NWP models and measured road/weather parameters can be used in road weather models (e.g. the Model of the Environment and Temperature of Roads, METRo) to predict road ice formation. Claudia's results contributed towards the implementation of a novel maintenance decision support system that is now currently used to optimise salt gritting operations, i.e. to reduce oversalting and related environmental damage to the surrounding environment while guaranteeing driving safety.

From 2017 Claudia has joined the University of Reading as postdoctoral research associate to further develop her expertise in forecasting and early warning systems for natural hazards. As member of HORIZON2020 ANYWHERE project (EnhANcing emergencY management and response to extreme WeatHER and climate Events), Claudia's current research is focused on implementing and testing a health hazard early warning system using numerical weather forecasts of extreme temperatures and pollution levels at the European scale.

• Environmental Science Research Division