Patrizia Caruso is attending the first year of the PhD course in “Mechanical, Manufacturing, Management and Aerospace Innovation” at the University of Palermo (Italy). She obtained her Bachelor’s (2017) and Master’s Degree in Mechanical Engineering (2021) at the University of Palermo. During her studies, she carried out a curricular internship at Ri.MED Foundation, the purpose of which was to create software and hardware media for the mechanical characterization of soft tissues subjected to biaxial tests; these aids were incorporated into the use of a biaxial test machine.  Since 2021, Patrizia serves as PhD student at Fondazione Ri.MED for the Prof. D’Amore team in the Laboratory of Cardiovascular Tissue Engineering.

Her research project aims to investigate the physiology and behavior of human cardiovascular tissues for tissue engineering purposes. Her work mainly focuses on characterizing the macroscopical and microscopical structure and function of cardiac tissue through microscopical analysis, histological assessment, and mechanical/functional testing, such as biaxial, flexural, and pulse duplicator tests. Her skills include modeling (SOLIDWORKS), mechanical testing (uniaxial test, biaxial test) programming (MATLAB), and numerical simulation (Abaqus, ANSYS).