Dr Zanardini is Associate Professor in Environmental Microbiology at the University of Insubria, Department of Science and High Technology. (Como, Italy)

Her main research activities focus on microbial ecology and environmental microbiology: bioremediation of contaminated soil, wastewater treatment plant, and biodeterioration/biorestoration in cultural heritage field.
In 2009 she has been awarded a 2 years Marie Curie IEF-FP7 project, "Biological agents that actively attack Cultural Heritage stoneworks"; during this project she worked at the University of Warwick, developing specific molecular ecology techniques in the study of microbial communities colonizing cultural heritage stoneworks. She applied molecular techniques such as PCR, cloning, sequencing, 16S rRNA gene and functional gene analysis, high throughput sequencing (454 pyrosequencing) , RT-PCR. She has also experience of other cutting edge techniques such as DNA-SIP and Raman-FISH.

Dr Zanardini is Associate Professor in Microbiology at the University of Insubria (Como), Department of Science and High Technology. She received her University degree in Biology at University of Milan, and PhD in "Chemistry, biochemistry and ecology of pesticides" (1999), University of Milan. She worked as Researcher for 14 years at the University of Milan and since 2005 as Associate Professor at University of Insubria.