I come from the University of Pisa, where I completed both my bachelor degree in Ecological and Biodiversity Sciences, and my master degree in Conservation and Evolution (Department of Biology). During the bachelor degree, I acquired the fundamental knowledge in different fields of biology, which culminated in a thesis about the tuning of a multiplex PCR on microsatellite loci to study the kinship of an endangered species of lemur in Madagascar, Eulemur fulvus.

During the master degree, I focused more on my principal fields of interests, ecology and conservation biology. I spent six months at the University of the Wiwatersrand (Johannesburg), where I developed some skills in the field and worked on my thesis. My thesis title was: “Identification of areas suitable for the sable antelope (Hippotragus niger niger) in South Africa with the use of a Species Distribution Model”. From the beginning of my PhD I expanded my fields of interests and integrated the epidemiological aspect in the study of the ecology of the parasite Echinococcus multilocularis at the edge of its distribution here in north-eastern Italy.

PhD project: IT-Em: the eco-epidemiology of hidden food-borne parasites at the edge of their distributions. The case of Echinococcus multilocularis in north-eastern Italy.

FEM supervisor: Dr Heidi C. Hauffe, Dr. Annapaola Rizzoli.

Email: lucia.cenni@fmach.it; lucia.cenni@phd.unipi.it