Karen Althea Manfredi is a PhD student in Industrial Engineering at the University of Calabria, where her research focuses on the development of Digital Twin as a Service platforms for human-centric processes within Industry 4.0. She holds a Master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering and a Second-Level Master in Industry of the Future and Smart Manufacturing.

Karen is a qualified Industrial Engineer with research interests in Industry 5.0 principles, particularly in simulation and digital twins. She has served as a Research Fellow at the MSC-LES Laboratory and gained international experience through engineering internships at York University and Mircom Group of Companies (Toronto, Canada), working on production line simulation and optimization, as well as through participation in international conferences and industry events. She has also contributed to industry-oriented research and consultancy projects, applying innovative approaches to real-world production systems.

She is actively involved in the scientific community, contributing to the organization of international conferences such as I3M and ISM, and has published research on modeling and simulation, Industry 4.0 technologies, and digital transformation in industrial systems.

Currently, she is a Visiting PhD Student at the Institute for Manufacturing (IfM), University of Cambridge, where she develops research on human-centric system design through scalable, service-oriented digital twin architectures aimed at enhancing industrial operational resilience.