Personal Snapshot

Anna Zucchetti, an Italian by birth, is a biologist educated at Cambridge and Imperial College in the UK. She has dedicated her adult life to ensuring environmentally sustainable livelihoods for Peru’s urban poor living on the outskirts of the country’s sprawling cities. Anna arrived in the country drawn by an ad in the New Scientist seeking a biologist. Her job was to work with an NGO to set up a lab that could test water and soil quality in Lima and surrounding areas. When she arrived, she found that the lab consisted of one ancient microscope in the dilapidated kitchen of an old house – the NGO’s headquarters. Undaunted, she returned to Europe and undertook a personal campaign to gather as much laboratory equipment as her alma maters and colleagues were able to contribute – packed them in boxes and went back to Peru. Under Anna’s leadership, OACA and Ecolab have achieved national prominence and community trust.