Simona Masina has graduated in Physics in 1989 and in 1996 she received a Ph.D. from Princeton University (Program in Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences).

She has been researcher at Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR), associate researcher at Laboratoire d’Etudes en Gèophysique et Ocèanographie Spatiales-CNRS in Toulouse and after that at the Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV). She has more than ten years of experience in the field of global ocean modelling and ocean data assimilation. During these years she has been involved in several national and international projects and has been principal investigator for many European projects.

The scientific interests of Dr. Masina focus on the understanding of the ocean role in the global climatic system. Her research activities include the implementation and validation of data assimilation systems in ocean general circulation models. The final aim is to use the ocean analyses in order to understand how the ocean mean state and its variability are correlated with climate changes in particular in the tropical and Euro-Atlantic regions. Another of her interests concerns the study of the feedbacks between physical and biogeochemical processes in the climate system.

She is lecturer at the University of Bologna and University of Genoa and teaches the “Physical Oceanography” class in the Ph.D. Programme in Science and Management of Climate Change. She is member of the Governing Board of “Gruppo Nazionale di Oceanografia Operativa” (National Group of Operational Oceanography) and INGV representative at the “Commissione Oceanografica Italiana” (Italian IOC).