Valentina Di Santo

Dr. Valentina Di Santo is an Assistant Professor of Marine Animal Physiology at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego. Her research integrates biomechanics, physiology, and robotics to study fish locomotion under climate change. She holds a B.Sc. in Natural Sciences from Università di Firenze, an M.Sc. in Biology from the University of West Florida, and a Ph.D. in Biology (Marine Program) from Boston University. Her lab focuses on understanding how environmental stressors like warming, acidification, and hypoxia affect fish performance, while also developing bio-inspired robotics. Key collaborators include engineers and computer scientists for robotic platforms like the cyborg-skate and tuna-bot. Current funding comes from the Human Frontier Science Program and UC San Diego.

Her research themes include climate change impacts on fish physiology, biomechanics of swimming and walking behaviors, and paleo-inspired robotics. Notable achievements include quantifying skeletal morphology changes in forage fish over centuries via museum collections and developing a robotic model based on fossil data. Recent publications explore hovering energetics, shark locomotion, and the effects of cyanobacterial blooms on fish behavior.

• Education:
• B.Sc. Natural Sciences, Università di Firenze (Italy)
• M.Sc. Biology, University of West Florida
• Ph.D. Biology (Marine Program), Boston University

Lab members include postdocs Dr. Fidji Berio and Dr. Francesco Masnadi, lab technician Camille Morerod, and numerous graduate and undergraduate students. Awards include the 2025 Scialog Fellowship in Neurobiology and Changing Ecosystems. The lab emphasizes equity, collaboration, and innovative approaches to marine science.