Maddalena Ferrario received the Laurea degree in Telecommunication Engineering in 2000, and in 2007 she received the Ph.D. degree in Information Engineering, both from the Politecnico di Milano (Italy). Between 2000 and 2005 she has been a researcher in the Physical Optics Lab of CoreCom where her research activities have been focused on photoelastic optical tomography and low coherence interferometry for stress and birefringence recovery in low-PMD spun fibers and optical waveguides. In 2006 she joined the Optical Communication System Lab of Corecom and has been engaged in research on polarization stabilization techniques, Raman and Brillouin nonlinearities, dispersion (PMD and CD) tolerant advanced modulation formats, direct and coherent detection schemes for high capacity optical transmission systems. Since 2011 she is Responsible of the Fiber Optic Sensor Group of PoliCom and she is currently involved in the research and development of novel fiber optic sensors for in-field industrial applications.