Aurora Rizzo is a senior researcher at the Istituto di Nanotecnologia (CNR-Nanotec). She earned her degree in Physics in 2004 and completed her PhD in Materials and Innovative Technologies at the Scuola Superiore ISUFI, University of Salento, in 2008, with a thesis focused on Hybrid Colloidal Nanocrystal Organic-Based LEDs.

Following her PhD, she joined Prof. Olle Inganäs's group at Linköping University (Sweden), where she worked on Bio-Organic Light Emitting Diodes. In 2010, she moved to the Italian Institute of Technology (IIT), where her research focused on environmentally friendly, Cd-free nanocrystalline materials for solar cells.

In March 2010, she was appointed as a researcher at CNR under the PHOEBUS project (Plastic Technologies for the Realisation of Organic Solar Cells and High-Efficiency Bright and Uniform Light Sources). She became a permanent CNR staff member in 2011 and subsequently established the Hybrid and Organic Photovoltaics Lab at CNR-Nanotec in Lecce.

In 2020, Dr. Rizzo received the Italian National Scientific Qualification (Abilitazione Scientifica Nazionale) for both Associate and Full Professorship.

She has authored over 160 scientific publications (h-index: 46, Google Scholar), contributed to several book chapters and patents, and has supervised or co-supervised more than 15 PhD students. Since 2017, she has been a member of the Academic Board for the PhD program in Nanotechnology at the Department of Physics, University of Salento.

From 2015 to 2019, she served as Principal Investigator (PI) of the SIR-funded project 2D ECO (Two-Dimensional Colloidal Metal Dichalcogenides-Based Energy-Conversion Photovoltaics), supported by the Italian Ministry of University and Research (MIUR). She currently leads multiple national and international research projects focused on the development of innovative materials, including colloidal nanocrystals, metal halide perovskites, and polymer composites, for applications in optics and optoelectronics.