Maria Olga Varrà

Maria Olga Varrà is a fixed-term researcher in the Department of Food and Drug Sciences at the University of Parma, Italy. Her work focuses on food safety, traceability, and health risk assessment for animal-derived products, with particular expertise in spectroscopic and elemental analysis techniques.

Research Interests:

• Food safety monitoring for toxins and contaminants
• Application of near-infrared spectroscopy (NIR) in food authenticity
• Traceability systems using isotopic and elemental markers
• Health risk assessment for dietary metal exposure
• Metabolomics in livestock health monitoring

Publication Trends: Recent articles emphasize analytical chemistry methods for detecting contaminants (alkaloids, heavy metals) in food chains, development of rapid spectroscopic tools for freshness monitoring, and chemometric approaches to seafood authentication.

Teaching Activities: Instructs courses on hygienic control of animal-origin products and food quality systems.