Gioia is Rankine Chair, Professor of Energy Engineering at the University of Glasgow, where she is Director of the Glasgow Centre for Sustainable Energy, Associate Director of the Centre for Sustainable Solutions, Head of the Energy and Sustainability Research Group and member of the university’s Sustainability Working Group. She champions the Sustainable Net-Zero challenge in engineering and beyond. She regards energy as a service to sustainable development and is particularly interested in sustainable solutions that bring together people, places and the environments.

Until June 2018, Gioia was Professor and Head of the Geo-Energy Engineering Centre at Cranfield University. Between 2011 and early 2016, she held the Endowed Chair and Professorship in Geothermal Energy Systems at Clausthal University of Technology, where she was also the Director of the Institute of Petroleum Engineering. Gioia was formerly an Assistant and then Associate Professor in Petroleum Engineering at Texas A&M University, Chevron Corporation Faculty Fellow and faculty member of the Ocean Drilling and Sustainable Earth Science partnership. Prior to joining academia, she worked with Eni-Agip, Enterprise Oil UK, Shell E&P UK and Total E&P UK, covering both offshore and onshore assignments.  

She holds a  Laurea Summa Cum Laude in Environmental Engineering from Sapienza University of Rome, a M.Sc. degree in Petroleum Engineering from Imperial College London and a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from Imperial College London.  

She is Vice-Chairperson of the Bureau of the Expert Group on Resource Management of the United Nations Commission for Europe (UNECE), Co-Chair of its Renewables Sub-Group and Chair of its Geothermal Energy Sub-Group. She served on the 2020-2023 Board of Directors of the International Geothermal Association (IGA). She is Member of the European Geothermal Energy Council (EGEC) and the UK Carbon Capture and Storage Research Centre (UKCCSRC), and serves on the Directorate of Scottish Carbon Capture and Sequestration (SCCS).