Iliana has a background in surface science. She received her PhD in Energy and Advanced Manufacturing at the Future Industries Institute at UniSA and joined the ANFF-SA team at UniSA as a Characterisation Specialist in 2021.

Currently she spends her working time divided between ANFF-SA where she does surface and X-ray tomography characterisation, and Flinders University where she is involved in the development and characterisation of plasma polymer coatings for various applications.