Meet Sofia Trampari, Our Application Scientist for Crystallography

Sofia is passionate about science and new collaborations. She joined DECTRIS this April, and she is looking forward to getting to know our detector users better. IUCr 2023 in Melbourne is a great opportunity for her to do just that.

Before joining DECTRIS, Sofia worked as a postdoc on a project to automate a serial crystallography pipeline at the Swiss Light Source. She got her Ph.D. in molecular biology and genetics from Aarhus University, and, being a native Greek, she studied in Athens for her Master’s in microsystems and nanodevices and Bachelor’s in physics. Furthermore, Sofia has worked at Novartis, PANalytical, Molecular Dimensions, and Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron (DESY).

As an Application Scientist, Sofia’s job is to listen to DECTRIS’ customers and other scientists in their projects and to help them find and make the best of their tools. She is also the channel for the community inside DECTRIS. As an Application Scientist for crystallography in particular, her protein crystallography experience includes powder diffraction, single crystal, and serial crystallography. She is specialized in membrane proteins, and she has worked with synchrotron beamlines as well as home source instruments. Being a satisfied user of various DECTRIS detectors herself, Sofia joined the company to help us develop the best detectors on the market and improve the users' experience even further.

However much experience Sofia might have, she points out that our customers and users are the real experts in their applications. “My role is to bring together different scientists and instrument developers, who will then spark new ideas and great collaborations”, Sofia explains. Her interdisciplinary background, science communication skills, and endless curiosity will serve her well here.

Sofia will attend the Congress and General Assembly of the International Union of Crystallography (IUCr) 2023 in Melbourne and give a talk on a membrane protein crystallization method. If you’re there, come say hi!