Maria Laura Du Lorenzo is now director research scientist at the Institute of Chemistry and Technology of Polymers of the Italian National Research Council (ICTP-CNR, Italy). In 1998 she was a Research Associate at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville and the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (USA). Her main research interests focus on the thermal analysis of homopolymers and multi-component polymeric materials. Major investigations concern structure-property relationships, transition kinetics (crystallization, melting, glass transition), morphology, mechanical, and barrier properties. Dr. Di Lorenzo is Head of the Laboratory of Thermal Analysis at ICTP-CNR. Dr. Di Lorenzo received the “First AIM Award for Young Researchers”, from the Italian Association of Science and Technology of Macromolecules (AIM) in 2007 and the “A. Lucci Award”, from the Italian Association of Calorimetry and Thermal Analysis (AICAT), for “her innovative contribution to the development of calorimetric and thermoanalytical instruments for the characterization of polymer-based materials” in 2002.