About the author: Sofia Garcia Fracaro

Sofia Garcia Fracaro is a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Ph.D. Researcher at Merck for the ETN-Charming Project. She is carrying out research on the effectiveness and efficiency of immersive learning environments and serious gaming applications when applied for the training of chemical operators and technicians. Her motivation is to make the learning of chemical process and safety regulations easier to understand and remember while intensifying the motivation to learn. 

Sofia had studied Chemical Engineering at the National University of Mar del Plata, Argentina, where she graduated in 2014. After her undergrad degree, she did a Specialization in Technological Applications of Nuclear Power at Balseiro Institute. Here she developed, for her thesis, the model for the Primary Cooling System of an Experimental Nuclear Reactor, for the Training Simulator for operators. Then, she worked for the Nuclear National Commission as a Simulator Engineer for a year and a half, modeling several Systems of the Reactor and integrating them for the Simulator. In 2017, Sofia was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship and started her Master of Science in Chemical Engineering at Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago, where she conducted research in Model Predictive Control for her Master Thesis.