Tesoro began serving as Visiting Professor, Adjunct Professor, and Senior Research Scientist at MIT starting in 1972.
Beginning in 1972, Giuliana Tesoro transitioned from industry to academia, taking on a series of appointments at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where she served as Visiting Professor, Adjunct Professor, and Senior Research Scientist over the following decade. This move marked a significant shift in her career, allowing her to combine her deep industrial research experience with teaching and mentoring the next generation of chemists and engineers.
At MIT, Tesoro continued her research into polymer and textile chemistry while also contributing to the institution's academic mission through teaching and mentorship. Her presence at MIT as a woman scientist with decades of industrial leadership experience was itself notable, as women held very few faculty or senior research positions in engineering and chemistry departments at major American research universities during this period.
Her decade at MIT (1972–1982) allowed her to bridge the worlds of applied industrial chemistry and academic research, sharing practical insights from her patents and industrial innovations with students and colleagues. This period cemented her reputation as both a scientist and an educator, and it set the stage for her subsequent research professorship at the Polytechnic Institute of New York University.