Dr. Simona R. Lampe is a multidisciplinary researcher in orthopedics, with expertise in tribology and electrochemistry applied to hip and knee implants. She studied biomechanical engineering at the Technical University of Milan (Italy). Her master’s thesis (1998), carried out in collaboration with the Technical University of Munich (Germany), focused on the analysis of a retrieved knee prosthesis metal component from both mechanical and metallurgical perspectives.

Between 1998 and 2004, she gained combined research and industrial experience in orthopedic implants. At the AO/ASIF Research Institute (Switzerland), she contributed to the development of a stand-alone fretting test device. She then worked at Mathys Italia S.r.l. (Italy), an affiliate of Mathys Medical Bettlach (Switzerland), where she was responsible for technical support and the company’s Quality Management System. She subsequently joined the Laboratory of Metallurgical Chemistry at EPFL in Lausanne, contributing to tribocorrosion research and to teaching and student supervision.

In 2004, Dr. Lampe joined EMPA as a PhD student and earned her doctorate in 2009 at EPFL, focusing on electrophoretic deposition of multiscale-structured TiO₂ surfaces. After an extended family leave, she returned to research as a postdoctoral fellow at Rush University Medical Center (Chicago, USA) from 2017 to 2021, where she developed a novel bio-tribocorrosion testing method.

Her current research focuses on the characterization and tribological performance of polyethylene inlays used in total hip arthroplasty.