Dr. Simona Ciuta was born in Bucharest, Romania. She received her B.S. in Environmental Engineering from Politehnica University of Bucharest. Dr. Ciuta developed her bachelor's thesis at the University of Trento, Italy after being awarded an Erasmus Scholarship. She obtained a Masters Degree in Environmental Management and a Ph.D. in Power Engineering from Politehnica University of Bucharest, Romania. During her Ph.D. she was invited at University of Trento, Italy for research stages to further develop her thesis. Currently, Dr. Ciuta works as a Post-Doctoral Research Associate for the Combustion and Catalysis Laboratory in the Department of Chemical Engineering at City College of New York (CCNY). Prior to CCNY, she was an Assistant Professor in the Power Engineering Department at Politehnica University of Bucharest. She worked as Research Assistant on several European Union funded projects during her Ph.D, in particular in the field of biomass conversion into energy, waste characterization and advanced thermal processes. Dr. Ciuta`s research focuses on waste materials conversion into energy, waste management, thermal processes such as gasification and pyrolysis. She published 12 journal papers, 2 book chapters, and approximately 30 conference proceedings papers in the field. Dr. Ciuta developed a one of a kind intra-particle gas sampling technique that provides significant insight into fundamental reaction sequences happening during thermal decomposition of waste materials.