Cristina Africh is senior scientist at CNR-IOM headquarters. Co-head of the Surface sTructure and Reactivity at the Atomic Scale lab, jointly run by CNR-IOM and the University of Trieste (Prof. Giovani Comelli co-head from the UniTS side) and hosting two scanning tunneling microscopy apparatuses. Her research interests are mainly focused on the study of the structural, electronic and chemical properties of nanostructured surfaces.

In recent years she investigated in particular the growth mechanism, atomic structure and reactivity of pristine and doped graphene layers supported on single- and polycrystalline metal substrates. She has specific competences in the real time investigation of surface processes with atomic resolution and contributed to the development of a fast module (patented), which allows for acquisition of movies at video-rate with commercial STM instruments also in reactive environment and at high temperature.

In 2015-2021, Cristina Africh served as project manager for the NFFA-Europe (Nanoscience Foundaries and Fine Analysis – Europe), a H2020 project with 19 beneficiaries providing access to external users in 13 European Institutions.

From Mar. 2021, she is infrastructure manager and member of the executive and strategic committee of NFFA-Europe Pilot, a new H2020 project (26 beneficiaries and several third parties) that aims at developing the NFFA consortium into a single, integrated and interoperable distributed research infrastructure for nanoscience (IDRIN) with long-term perspectives in the EU RI landscape.