Dr. Andrea Pacheco

Andrea is originally from Tunja, a city on the Eastern Ranges of the Colombian Andes. She was 16 when she finished school and afterwards had the opportunity to make an intercultural exchange in Germany. There she was introduced, for the first time, to scientists working in environments outside of academia, and she found the wide versatility of STEM careers to be an inspiration for pursuing her Bachelor’s and Master’s studies in Physics at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia.

In 2017 she moved to Ireland and became the first Doctor graduated from the Biophotonics@Tyndall team under the supervision of Prof. Stefan Andersson-Engels when she received her Ph.D. in Science – Physics from University College Cork in 2022. During her PhD she designed, manufactured, and developed novel anthropomorphic phantoms and computational models to contribute to the clinical translation of gas spectroscopy into neonatal respiratory health care.

After more than a year of parental leave in which Andrea fully dedicated to her son, in 2024 she joined the Lambdalab team at the Politecnico di Milano, as an awardee of the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Postdoctoral Fellowship. The goal of her awarded project "INTUIT" (IN-situ Thermometry gUidance In phoTomedicine) is to pioneer the development of photonic-based spectroscopy and thermometry methods, into clinical solutions to visualize and differentiate tissue undergoing hyperthermia from normal healthy tissue during thermal ablation.

Andrea is keen about translation of technology, enjoys working on interdisciplinary projects in close collaboration with academic, industry and medical partners. She is also passionate about science communication and has actively volunteered in STEM outreach activities for the past 13 years. She served as secretary and president of the UNBOS (2011-2014) and Tyndall & UCC (2018-2021) Optica student chapters and was also the Founder of the latter. Additionally, she was the lead organizer of IONS Ireland 2021.

Follow Andrea on LinkedIn.