Katia is an experienced Agronomist, with strong technical and business experience in soil-less production of strawberries, micro-greens and herbs. Holds a MSc in Agricultural Engineering and a MBA in Agribusiness, and before here entrance in the Urban Farming industry she spent some time teaching at undergraduate Agriculture and Countryside Management degrees. Since 2019 she is part-time PhD student at Harper Adams University. Her PhD is focused on the optimisation of LED technologies for strawberries in TCEA (Total Controlled Environment Agriculture).

She has been involved in industrial research with UK leading organisations, and her main research interests are artificial light in CEA/TCEA growing environments, agronomical and physiological aspects of indoor production of strawberries and vertical farming food production systems.

Katia is keen to support the Urban Agriculture industry, promote the benefits of incorporation of technologies like Vertical Farming in the food systems and educate the public. To achieve so she Volunteers as Director of Communications for UKUAT (UK Urban Agricultural Technologies).

Today Katia has now opened her own consulting business InnoPhyte Consulting to help more AgriTech companies achieve their goals.