Paola Taroni was born in Como, Italy, in 1963.
She graduated in Nuclear Engineering at Politecnico di Milano in 1987.
Visiting scientist at “G.Harrison Spectroscopy Laboratory”, MIT, Cambridge MA (1987-1988).
Researcher for the Italian National Council for Research (CNR) (1988-1999).
Associate Professor of Physics at Politecnico di Milano (1999-2010).
Full Professor of Physics at Politecnico di Milano(2011-present).
Head of the PhD Program in Physics at Politecnico di Milano (2013-2018).

She co-authored about 140 scientific peer reviewed papers and 3 international patents. Fellow member of Optica and SPIE.
Conference Chair of international conferences: "Diffuse Optical imaging", part of the European Conferences on Biomedical Optics (ECBO) in 2011, 2013 and 2015; Laser Applications in the Life Sciences (LALS) in 2014; Gordon Research Conference on Lasers in Biology and Medicine in 2016; “Optical Tomography and Spectroscopy of Tissue XIII”, part of BiOS (Photonics West) in 2019 and 2021.
Program Chair and General Chair of the European Conferences on Biomedical Optics (ECBO) for 2017 and 2019.
Symposium Chair of BiOS (Photonics West) for 2022-2025.

Associate Editor of Photochemical and Photobiological Sciences (2003-present), Optics Express (2008-2014), Biomedical Optics Express (2010-2014), Journal of Innovative Optical Health Sciences (2022-present), Journal of Physics: Photonics (2023-present). Medical Editor of JNIRS-Journal of Near Infrared Spectroscopy (2016-present).

Paola Taroni’s research activity concerns mainly the development of time-resolved optical spectroscopy and imaging, and their applications in biology and medicine. Initially, she has long worked on time-resolved fluorescence spectroscopy and imaging, and more recently on time domain diffuse optical spectroscopy for the non-invasive characterization of biological tissues, with special interest in time-resolved multi-wavelength optical mammography, non-invasive assessment of breast cancer risk and therapy monitoring.