Faculty

Federica Anichini, Florentine by birth, has obtained a PhD in Medieval Italian Studies at New York University, in 2002. In 2009 she has published a monograph on the poetry of Guido Cavalcanti (1250?-1300), Voices of the Body. Liminal Grammar in Guido Cavalcanti ‘Rime’, about the employment of sources from natural philosophy, medicine in particular, in Cavalcanti’s work. Her publications include the essays: “Empty Womb and Full Bellies in Decameron 9.3,” in The Decameron: Ninth Day in Perspective. Volume Nine of the Lectura Boccaccii, (Toronto: Toronto University Press, forthcoming); In Dialogue with the Imageless Vision: Constructing Language in Paradiso III, in Dante and Heterodoxy (Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2014); Inferno IX: Passing within City Walls and beneath the ‘velame de li versi strani’, (Mediaevalia 33 (2012) ). Her current research centers on the relationship between the urban environment and creativity, specifically on the relation of medieval Florence to its vernacular poetic tradition by focusing on one specific urban morphological feature, the city walls, meant not as a defensive device but as permeable margins.

Coming soon!

Massimo Avuri has a degree in Foreign Language and Literature from the University of Florence and a specialization in Teaching Italian as a Foreign Language from the University of Siena for Foreigners.

He has worked as an editorial consultant for French and German language fiction and has translated two novels by the French author Henri-Frédéric Blanc. After a long stay in Germany, where he taught Italian language courses at public and private schools, he served as a collaborator and Italian language expert for the Centro Linguistico di Ateneo at the University of Florence. Currently, he is a professor of Italian language at NYU Florence, where he has contributed to the creation of teaching materials.

Dorothea Barrett (Ph.D. Cambridge University) has taught at Beijing Normal University (China), Glasgow University (Scotland), and the University of Florence. She is the author of Vocation and Desire: George Eliot's Heroines (a feminist analysis of the works of the great nineteenth-century British woman writer) and various articles on nineteenth- and twentieth-century literature. She has edited works by Eliot, Wilde, Forster, Joyce, and others. Vocation and Desire was reissued online in 2016 as part of Routledge Historical Sources: History of Feminism.

Elisa Biagini lives in Florence, Italy, after having taught and studied in the US for several years (Ph.D. Rutgers University). She has published seven poetry collections, most recently Da una crepa (Einaudi, 2014). Her poems have been translated into many languages, and she has published editions of her poetry in Spain, France and the US ("The guest in the wood", Chelsea editions, 2013 - “2014 Best Translated Book Award”; “The plant of dreaming”, Xenos books, 2017). A translator from English (of Alicia Ostriker, Sharon Olds, Lucille Clifton amongst others), she has published an anthology of contemporary American poetry, Nuovi Poeti Americani (Einaudi, 2006) and she has been invited to the most important international poetry festivals. She teaches Creative Writing-Poetry, Travel Writing, Literature and Art History in Italy and abroad. www.elisabiagini.it
 

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Claudia Maria Bucelli graduated in 2000 at the Faculty of Architecture, University of Florence, with a specialization in the history of gardens and, in particular, the symbology of the monastic garden. She did her Masters degree at the Scuola di Specializzazione in Architettura dei Giardini e Progettazione del Paesaggio and received her Ph.D. in Landscape Planning  from the Department of Urbanistic and Territorial Planning of the University of Florence with a dissertation on the ideology and symbology of historic and contemporary gardens. She has served as a teaching assistant to Professor Luigi Zangheri at the University of Florence for the courses ‘History of Garden and Landscape’ and ‘Restoration of Historical Gardens’. Since 2013, she teaches the course ‘Gardens and Landscape’ at New York University Florence. She has contributed to several important research projects and publications in the field of landscape and garden culture, including: contributing to a University of Florence and Pisa team that assembled and published a catalog of literature on Italian gardens, serving as a member of the scientific committee for the UNESCO process to recognize the Medici Villas as UNESCO Heritage (recognized in 2014), and researching the famous Italian landscape architect Pietro Porcinai’s projects in  Italy and abroad. She has also done research on Villa Guicciardini Corsi Salviati Garden (2018) and Pinocchio’s Park in Collodi (the conference proceedings will be published in spring 2023). She is one of the founding members of the Executive Council of the Pietro Porcinai Association and currently serves as Vice President. She is also a founding member of the Executive Council of the Cantiere Venturino Venturi Association. She is currently organizing with Silvia Mantovani and Lucia Fiaschi an international conference on the city of Florence entitled “La città giusta” (The Good City), scheduled for May 2023.

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Mauro Campus is a professor in International History at the Cesare Alfieri School of Political Science at the University of Florence since 2013. Prior to coming to Unifi he was a lecturer in the School of Political Sciences at LUISS Guido Carli University in Rome and at MIT. His contributions to the field of international economic history regard monetary cooperation and integration, the policies of post-war reconstruction, and the rise of global economic governance.

He has organized, directed and participated as a speaker in national and international conferences and has published numerous articles in journals and books. He is the author of L′Italia, gli Stati Uniti e il piano Marshall, 1947-1951 (Roma-Bari: Laterza 2008), which won the Fondazione De Gasperi prize, and Sviluppo, crisi, integrazione (edited by, Milano: Bruno Mondadori 2012).

He is one of the co-founders of the 'Programma di Storia orale della politica estera italiana' at Istituto dell′Enciclopedia italiana Giovanni Treccani in Rome. He is member of the scientific committee of the editorial series 'Collana di storia internazionale' (Mondadori, Milan) and is on the board of directors of the journal Parole Chiave. On behalf of the Italian Minister of Culture he is a member of the board of trustees of the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino Foundation, where he served as vice-president from 2014-2019. He writes columns for the Italian daily Il Sole 24 Ore.

Domenico Cannalire graduated in Humanities and Philosophy from the University of Urbino “Carlo Bo” and he later obtained a postgraduate specialization in Teaching Italian as a Foreign Language from the University of Siena for Foreigners. Having studied filmmaking and holding a diploma from "Scuola Nazionale di Cinema Indipendente' in Florence, he is also the creator of video productions for Italian language learning purposes, which will soon be published by NYU. Currently, he is a lecturer of Italian language at NYU Florence.

Alessandra Capodacqua, born in Naples, lives and works in Florence, Italy. A graduate in European Languages and Literatures, Alessandra is a photographer, a curator, and a lecturer in photography at NYU Florence. She works with a variety of devices, from pinhole cameras to smartphones, and since the early 1990s her self-portraits have delved into questions of identity and gender roles. Her photographs are shown nationally and internationally and are held in private and public collections, including the Galleria degli Uffizi in Florence and the Maison Européenne de la Photographie in Paris.

Alessandra has curated exhibitions and organized festivals of photography internationally. She is regularly invited as portfolio reviewer and as juror for International Photo Awards and Prizes. Since 2015 she has coordinated the Gabriele Basilico Prize for Landscape and Architecture Photography. In 2018 she became strategic advisor and curator for the Collezione Donata Pizzi, a private collection that includes the works of more than 70 Italian women photographers and artists.

RENATA CARLONI, Master Degree in Philosophy and Post-graduate Degrees in Language Teaching and Media and Communication, is currently the Language Coordinator at New York University in Florence. Before being appointed at NYU in Florence she ran private companies in the field of education and media, coordinated EU-funded projects and taught Italian language at the University of Florence. At NYU in Florence, and in collaboration with the Italian Dept at home campus, she supervises the Italian Language Program and the exchange initiatives with Italian schools and universities. Her field of research is the teaching and acquisition of Italian as a second/foreign language. She published several articles as well as teaching materials. She runs regular training workshops for Italian Language Faculty in Florence and in New York. Recently she acted as General Editor of the new Italian Language Textbook, “Allora”, for learning the Italian language at New York University that was published by New York University Press in 2013, and also wrote several chapters for this book. The publication is the result of a collective effort on both sides of the Atlantic: Florence and Washington Square and reinforced the shared beliefs and teaching practices of the language programs.

Rossella Catanese is a Research Associate at the University of Tuscia (Viterbo). Previously, she has been Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Udine, and IMT School for Advanced Studies Lucca. Among her collaborations, Sapienza University of Rome and the University of Milan – Bicocca. Her publications focus on film restoration, film history, experimental film, Futurism and avant-garde: her books include the monograph Lacune binarie. Il restauro dei film e le tecnologie digitali (Bulzoni, 2013), and the edited collections Futurist Cinema. Studies on Italian Avant-garde Film (Amsterdam University Press, 2017) and From Sensation to Synaesthesia in Film and New Media, co-edited with Francesca Scotto Lavina and Valentina Valente (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2019).

Silvia Chegia has been teaching Italian language at New York University Florence since 1999. She obtained a master of arts degree with first-class honors in Italian literature in 1990 at the Facoltà di Lettere e Filosofia of the University of Florence after discussing her thesis on Italo Svevo "La costellazione Zeno" with Professor Giorgio Luti. Her thesis received the Don Luigi Stefani Degree Award concerning the literature of border culture in Italy in the 20th century.

She has several specializations in the teaching of Italian for foreigners from the University of Siena for Foreigners including a diploma of specialization in the didactics of Italian as a foreign language. 

Alessandro Chiaramonte received his PhD in Political Science from the University of Florence where he is currently an associate professor. He teaches "Italian Politics and Government." 

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Originally from Florida, Nicole Cuddeback earned her Bachelor’s degree at Sarah Lawrence College in New York and a Master of Fine Arts degree in Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Houston in Texas. She also earned a degree in studies of the ancient world and an upper-level degree in Archaeology at the University of Florence, Italy. She has published poems in American literary journals, and in her collection The Saint of Burning Down, Zoo Press. Wearing her archaeological hat, she has participated in excavations at ancient Greek Kaulonia in southern Italy and at sites in ancient Etruria. She has taught in NYU Florence’s Liberal Studies Program since 2000. She loves reading, hiking, visiting ancient sites, and working and learning with and from first-year students.

Giovanni Del Giudice has a degree in History and Film Criticism from the University of Florence and a specialization in Teaching Italian as a Foreign Language from the University of Siena for Foreigners. He has worked as an Italian Language and Culture teacher with many different kinds of foreign language learners from refugees, to children and teens in the Italian public school system, and he has participated in projects sponsored by the Ministry of Interior and Municipality of Florence (Le chiavi della città, developed by ARCI Firenze). In 2015 Giovanni taught for two semesters at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and, since then, has always worked for study abroad programs in Florence. He is a passionate musician (singer and guitar player) with a particular interest in Brazilian music.

Marco Del Rocca studied Italian Literature at the University of Florence and graduated with a thesis about Federigo Tozzi, one of the main Italian authors in the twentieth century. At a later stage, along with his studies in literature, he became interested in teaching Italian as a second language. He has now been teaching Italian to foreigners since 1994 (since 2000 in cooperation with NYU in Florence). A secondary aspect of his professional life (but a
primary issue for what he considers a meaningful life) is his activity as a musician: he plays bass with several jazz/fusion combos and big bands in the florentine area.

Olivier de Maret holds a doctorate in history from the Free University of Brussels (V.U.B.) and specializes in food studies. His research interests focus on food systems, Italian cuisine and food history, and the relationship between food, migration, and identity. He has published articles and a book on Italian food and migrants in Brussels prior to World War I and is production co-editor for the European journal Food & History.

Sara De Masi is Director of International Relations for the Department of Economics and Management at University of Florence and Professor of Management at University of Florence. She has a Bachelor in Business and a Master Degree in Management and Business Administration at the University of Florence. In 2011 she got her Ph.D. in Economics, Markets and Institutions at IMT – Institute for Advanced Studies, one of the top post-­‐graduated schools in Italy. Between 2010 and 2014 she joined New York University, Leonard Stern School of Business where she studied as a visiting Ph.D. student and a post-­‐doc researcher. She is the author of numerous papers on strategic management and corporate governance. Her research interests include managerial incentives, board diversity, corporate governance, innovation and academic spin-­‐off.

Raffaele Donvito (PhD) is Aggregate Professor of Marketing and International Management at the University of Florence. He has been research fellow of the Department of Economics and Management at the University of  Florence since 2000. He has been a lecturer in  marketing at NYU Florence since 2009. His research interests include international marketing, brand management, retail marketing, marketing communication, fashion and luxury marketing. His published research outputs have appeared in refereed international journals including Journal of Business Research, Psychology & Marketing, Journal of Brand Management, Journal of Marketing Trends, International Journal of Business and Economics, and also in Marketing Trends, EMAC, IMP, KSMS, AMS international conferences proceedings. He is member of the editorial board of Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science, member of the Editorial Board of Journal of Global Fashion Marketing, and member of the reviewing committee of Journal of Marketing Trends. He received the Best Conference Paper award at 2010 Global Marketing Conference in Tokyo and
the Marketing Trends Awards at 2007-8 International Congresses on Marketing Trends, in Paris-Venice.

Matteo Duni received his PhD in History and Civilization from the European University Institute. He teaches the courses on "Medieval Church", "Italy during the Renaissance: Florence" and "Magic, Religion and Inquisition" at NYU in Florence. 

Bruce Edelstein, Coordinator for Graduate Programs and Advanced Research at NYU in Florence, received his PhD in Fine Arts at Harvard University in 1995. Prof. Edelstein has a wide array of research interests in the history of Italian Renaissance art and architecture, including patronage, court culture, and women's studies. Since 1999, he has taught various courses at NYU in Florence, including: "Medici Patronage", "Early Masters of Italian Renaissance Painting", "The Age of Leonardo, Raphael, and Michelangelo", "European Architecture of the Renaissance", and, for the Graduate Program, the "Works in Progress Seminar". 

On leave, AY 2015-2016.

Giampiero Gallo is Professor of Econometrics at the School of Economics, University of Florence. He received his PhD in Economics from the University of Pennsylvania in 1989. Previous appointments were with the Department of Econometrics at the University of Geneva, the World Bank, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and the University of California at San Diego. He has authored several scientific articles on forecasting, financial volatility, and European exchange rate management. At NYU in Florence, he teaches "Statistics", "International Finance", and "Money and Banking". 

Lisa Ginsborg works at the European University Institute (EUI) School of Transnational Governance. She has worked as a Post-Doctoral Researcher at University College Dublin (UCD) and at the EUIbased Centre for Media Pluralism and Media Freedom in the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies; as a Teaching Fellow at the European Inter-University Centre for Human Rights and Democratisation (EIUC); and was a visiting researcher at New York University School of Law and at the Sydney Centre for International Law at the University of Sydney. Previously she worked in the legal department of the International Secretariat of Amnesty International (2006–2009) and in the NGO Liaison Office of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) (2005– 2006). She has also worked as a consultant for a number of human rights organizations and as a lecturer on human rights undergraduate and postgraduate courses. She holds a PhD in Public International Law from the EUI in Florence, Italy, and an MSc in Political Sociology from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). Recent publications include: One step forward, two steps back: The Security Council, ‘Foreign Terrorist Fighters’, and human rights, in M Nowak and A Charbord (eds.) Using Human Rights to Counter Terrorism (2018); Coherence Versus Coherence: Normative Versus Structural and Interest-Based Coherence, with G Finlay, in European Yearbook on Human Rights (2017); UN sanctions and the design of counter-terrorism strategies, in L van den Herik (ed.) Research Handbook on UN Sanctions and International Law, (Edward Elgar Publishers, 2017); The impact of the economic crisis on human rights in Europe and the accountability of international institutions, in 1 Global Campus Human Rights Journal (2017).

Silvia Giorgi graduated in 1995 with a degree in Medieval Art History from the University of Siena. After receiving several research fellowships and scholarships in Italy and abroad (Fondazione Longhi in Florence, The University of Siena, The University College London), she received a Ph.D. in Renaissance Iconography from the University of Siena. She further acquired a Masters in Art Management and Communication at the Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa in 1997 and a Certificate in Museum Curatorship in 2000. She is an expert in Medieval and Renaissance Art History as well as Iconography and Iconology, and has published and presented prolifically on these topics. Her current research focuses on Renaissance Iconography in Central Italy and on Sienese Goldsmith’s art. Silvia has taught for several US programs in Florence and Siena, and joined the CET Florence and CET Siena faculty in 2009.

Giorgia Giovannetti is Vice President for International Relations and full Professor of Economics at the University of Florence, Visiting Professor at EUI. She has acted as Scientific Director of the European Report on Development in 2009 and 2010, Director of the Research Centre of the Italian Trade Institute (2005-2007). She has been advising the President of ICE (2004-2011), the Italian Treasury (2003-05) and the Italian Ministry of Foreign Trade (2002-05). She is Scientific coordinator of the Fondazione Manlio Masi, member of the globalization team at OECD, and of a Group for the Reform of the Rome Agencies of the Center for Global Development in Washington. She holds a PhD and an MPhil in Economics from Cambridge University, and a Laurea cum laude in Statistics from the University of Roma la Sapienza. In the past she has been fellow of Trinity College- Cambridge and lecturer (1990-1995) and visiting Professor in several universities (UPF, NYU, Hoover Institution, Universitat Torcuato de Tella). Her research interests include macroeconomics, political economy, international trade and development economics. Her work has been published in leading academic journals and presented in main international conferences.

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Filippo Gusella is currently a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Florence and fellow of the Complexity Lab in Economics at the Catholic University in Milan. He received his Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Siena, jointly with the University of Pisa and the University of Florence. His research focuses on the theoretical and empirical analysis of economic fluctuations with heterogeneous agents and bounded rationality, the relationship between Global Value Chains and exports in an Agent-Based Model setting, and the relationship between financial instability and the increase of wealth inequality.

Laura Grazzini is a Research Fellow in Marketing at the Department of Economics and Management at the University of Florence, Italy. Her research interests lie in the areas of consumer behavior, social media
marketing, sustainable consumption and experimental research. She has been a visiting Ph.D. researcher at London Business School and Cardiff Business School.

Aoife Keogh has a Bachelor of Arts in Italian and History and specialized in history at postgraduate level. She holds an MPhil and an MA in history and completed a PhD at the European University Institute in History and Civilisation in 2015. She has collaborated on several historical publications and also teaches European history at Florida State University in Florence. She has worked at NYU Florence’s Writing Center and as part of OAS since 2015. 

Perri Klass is Professor of Journalism and Pediatrics at New York University and Co-Director of NYU Florence; she practices pediatrics at Bellevue Hospital. Dr. Klass writes the weekly column, “The Checkup,” for The New York Times. Her nonfiction books include Every Mother is a Daughter, coauthored with her mother, and Quirky Kids: Understanding and Helping Your Child Who Doesn’t
Fit In, coauthored with Eileen Costello, M.D., A Not Entirely Benign Procedure: Four Years as a Medical Student, and Baby Doctor: A Pediatrician’s Training. Her most recent books are The Mercy Rule, a novel, and Treatment Kind and Fair: Letters to a Young Doctor. Dr. Klass is the National Medical Director of Reach Out and Read, which works through pediatric primary care to promote reading aloud to young children.

Daniela Lateana was born and raised in Italy. She received her degree in Modern Italian Literature from the University of Florence and later obtained the DITALS II qualification, which certifies an advanced teaching competence in Italian as a Foreign Language, from the University of Siena for Foreigners. She also received a Masters Degree “LCS: insegnare Lingua e Cultura italiana a Stranieri” from the University of Tor Vergata in Rome. Lateana began teaching American students in 2008 and has taught Italian language at several study abroad programs in Florence including NYU, Syracuse University, Richmond University, CEA Study Abroad, Florence University of the Arts, Cabrillo College, Benedictine College, UC Davis, CAPA Study Abroad and Accent Study Abroad. She has been teaching at NYU Florence since 2012.

Giovanni Liberatore is Professor of Corporate Valuation at the University of Florence. He holds a PhD in Accounting from the University of Pisa (1992). As an Adjunct Professor, he teaches "Financial Accounting" at NYU in Florence, and "Management Control" at LUISS Business School in Rome. He has been a Certified Public Accountant and a Certified Auditor in Italy since 1992.  

Davide Lombardo received his PhD from the European University Institute (EUI) in the field of History. He teaches "Modern Italy" and the "Culture of the City: Italian Urban Life" at NYU Florence. 

Patricia Lurati defended her PhD thesis on “Orientalism and Exotic Animals in 14th and 15th century Florence” at the University of Zurich. She earned her degree in art history at the University of Siena and her M.A. in History of Fashion at the University of Florence. Patricia is the recipient of numerous Swiss research grants and her work focuses mainly on the period of the Italian Renaissance. She is the author of books – Doni nuziali del Rinascimento nelle collezioni svizzere (2007), La chiesa di sant’Antonio abate a Morcote (2014) – and scholarly articles. Her research on “Swiss Italian Frescoes Depicting Textiles” will be published in 2020. In 2014 she curated the exhibition and edited the catalogue of Doni d’amore. Donne e rituali nel Rinascimento (Pinacoteca Giovannni Züst, Rancate Switzerland). She also curated and edited the catalogue of the successful exhibition Animalia Fashion (Palazzo Pitti, Museo della Moda e del Costume, January 8 - May 5, 2019) with more than 107,000 visitors

Rahoul Masrani is a lecturer in media and communications. In his PhD thesis, which he completed in 2016 at the London School of Economics and Political Science, he explored the role of mainstream cinema in constructing, reinforcing and reimagining London’s symbolic power on the global stage. In addition, he has taught extensively in the field of media and democracy. Masrani is also an NYU alumni and studied abroad at the NYU Florence campus as a student.

Stephen Matini is an Italian-American business coach and consultant specializing in organizational development, leadership development, team building, and change management.

Stephen has worked with both mid-sized and Fortune 500 in the engineering, manufacturing, and pharmaceuticals sectors. Client portfolio includes multinational matrix organizations in the US, EMEA, and APAC regions like Hewlett-Packard, Novartis, Parker Hannifin, Kraft-Heinz, Gucci and Luxottica.

As a Client Partner for MYLIA (Adecco), he works directly with business and functional leaders to identify competency gaps and design learning development programs to boost business performance.

Stephen believes that most organizational issues result from breakdowns among key stakeholders, which can be effectively solved by improving communication. Stephan is particularly passionate about sustainable leadership to leverage organizational profitability, agility, and credibility while optimizing costs and risks.

As an adjunct professor Stephen teaches Organizational Communication at NYU since 2011. He also teaches Organizational Behavior, Foundations of Management, and Business Communication at Florida State University and the Lorenzo dé Medici Institute.  

Stephen holds a Master of Arts in Business Communication from Emerson College and a Bachelor of Arts in Modern Literature, Music & Theatre from the University of Florence, where he graduated with honors.

Stephen is a Professional Certified Coach (PCC) with the International Coach Federation (ICF), and an Associate member of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD).

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Monica Merli graduated with a laurea in modern literature, after which she began to specialize in Italian as a second language teaching, receiving DITALS certification from Università per Stranieri di Siena, an ITALS Master's from the Università Ca' Foscari in Venice and a Ph.D. in Linguistics from the University of Florence. Merli taught language didactics for the Middlebury College Master's program in Florence and she was also hired to teach foreign-language teaching in the TFA courses at the University Of Florence. At present Merli is teaching Italian language at NYU in Florence. Some of her contributions focus on teaching monolingual Anglo-American classes. 

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Eric Nicholson received his PhD in Renaissance Studies from Yale University (1991), and has performed in and directed numerous early modern plays, as well as published several articles in this same field. At NYU in Florence, he teaches courses on cultural history, early modern drama, and the performance of classic theatre.  

Scott Palmer, Adjunct Lecturer and Coordinator for Instructional Technology and Digital Initiatives, received his PhD in English from Tufts University in 2006. His areas of specialization include: nineteenth-century transatlantic literature of migration, travel, tourism; early nineteenth-century visual culture (photography, lithography, cartography); race and cultural studies. He teaches courses for Liberal Studies and the Gallatin School of Individualized Study.

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Natalia Piombino received her MA in Italian Studies from UCL London and her PhD in Italian History from Royal Holloway (University of London). She has taught for NYU in Florence Graduate Program a course on La narrazione del Sud nel cinema italiano e nella storiografia (1946-64) and is currently teaching a course on The Italian South.

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Jacopo Santini was born in Florence and pursued humanistic studies followed by a degree (Laurea) in Law at the University of Florence.

Since 1998, he has been engaged in the field of archaeological photography at the Soprintendenza Archeologica di Firenze. In this capacity he has been in charge of the photographic documentation of artefacts, of the various phases of restoration and of archaeological sites in central Italy and has collaborated on the production of iconographic material for exhibitions in the field.

Active since the mid-1990s in the field of documentary photography, he began publishing and exhibiting at galleries, festivals and cultural institutions in Italy and Europe.

Since 2004 he has been teaching for various programs, as a lecturer in photography, co-director of a Master in Photography program, and director of a program dedicated to the Venice Biennale of Art and Architecture. He also holds courses on the photographic language since 2018 for Leica Akademie in Florence.

He has been involved in reportages concerning socially relevant topics and the Middle East. Thanks to a grant, he is currently working on "301", a photographic/textual project on the memory of “Metz Yegern”, the Armenian genocide.

Salvatore Sberna completed a Ph.D in Political Science at the Istituto Italiano di Scienze Umane in Florence with a dissertation on the politics of organized crime, a quantitative and qualitative assessment of organized crime’s impact on local government in Italy. He is research fellow at the European University Institute since May 2012. He is coordinator of the post-graduate ‘APC Program’ on Analysis, Prevention and Control of Organized Crime and Corruption, organized by the Department of Political and Social Science, University of Pisa. He was visiting researcher at the Ex-legi Institute (University of Oxford), and Fulbright visiting researcher at UCLA. His publications include articles in books or journals, and he is currently preparing a manuscript about organized crime and politics in Italy.  Research interests include organized crime, political corruption, violence, democratization, accountability

Fabio Schoen. Full professor of Operations Research at the University of Florence, School of Engineering, where he teaches “Fundamentals of Operations Research”, “Optimization Methods”, “Models and methods for Organization and Management”. His research activity deals with optimization, in particular large scale non convex, and its applications to various fields ranging from health care, scheduling, logistics, forecasting, machine learning, data mining, analytics. A few years ago he founded a startup, KKT srl, devoted to Vehicle Routing, which was acquired in 2014 by Fleetmatics, a worldwide leader in fleet intelligence which has been acquired in August 2016 by Verizon, and now is part of Verizon Connect. In 2017 he founded a new startup, Intuendi, focused on forecasting and inventory management. He is the Director of the PhD program in Information engineering at the University of Florence. He is the delegate for the Industry 4.0 programme at the Department of Information Sciences. He is Associate Editor of the scientific journals: Computational Optimization and Applications, Journal of Global Optimization, Operations Research Letters, Optimization Methods and Software.

Marco Semeghini is a marketing manager with significant experience in the industry of fashion, with a focus on menswear. After graduating with a Master’s in Business Administration at Bocconi University in Milan, he started his career in the retail sector, covering the role of buyer for La Rinascente, the leading Italian high-range department store chain. Later on, he moved to the luxury sector, first at Gucci, where he started as a menswear buyer for direct stores, and then was promoted to worldwide menswear merchandising manager, subsequently at Tom Ford, where he played a key role in the brand startup phase, and was appointed head of merchandising. His latest role is at​ Canali, the Italian menswear company specializing in sartorial garments, where he has had added to his previous skills the roles of design creative director and product development director.

He regularly holds lessons and seminars at institutions such as Marangoni and Richmond University.

Coming soon!

Marcella Simoni , Ph.D. (London 2004) is an expert in Middle Eastern studies, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in particular. She has published a number of books and articles in various scientific journals ; among them Middle Eastern Studies, Jewish History, Passato e Presente, and others. She is currently working on the history of conscientious objection in Israel. She is also in the board of two journals “Passato e Presente” and “Quest – Issues in contemporary Jewish history”. She has extensive experience lecturing in international conferences and forums. Her research interests include civil society in Israeli-Palestinian history, history of medicine, and youth. She teaches "Judaic Studies: Contemporary Jewish Societies "at NYU Florence.

Andrew Smaldone, born in Denver, Colorado, has shown his work widely in Europe, the US, and the UK. He has participated in numerous residencies and is the recipient of awards including the Pollock Krasner Foundation Grant. Smaldone’s recent paintings depict architectural interiors and abstract atmospheric spaces. He works on both types of paintings alongside one another to compare and see the relationship between works that are visually different. In addition to his artistic practice, Smaldone began writing about art in 2005, developed his critical writing analysis of exhibitions while writing reviews for Art Review magazine, and has additionally written numerous essays in artists’ exhibition catalogues.

Debora Spini received her PhD in the History of Political Thought at the Scuola Superiore di Studio all'Università di S. Anna in Pisa in 1995. She has been a member of the Liberal Studies faculty at NYU in Florence since 1998 and teaches the "Social Foundations" course. 

Laura Tarabusi received her degree in Foreign Languages and Literature from the University of Florence in 1990. She was the Director of the University of Florence Language Resource Center from 1997 to 2000. Since 2000, she has been teaching courses in Italian language and culture at NYU in Florence, including "Service Learning: Community Service in Florence", and "Conversations in Italian".  

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A musicologist loving to spread love for music, Gaia Varon is University Lecturer in Music at the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore of Milan. She is also author and presenter of music programmes for Rai Radio3 (among which all the live broadcasts from Milan Teatro alla Scala), Swiss Radio Rete 2 and television music channels. She has published articles and book chapters on symphonic and operatic music on screen, classical music recording style and technique, and music in avant-garde short films, and is presently working on a book on Beethoven’s Fifth on screen. Winner of the The international Rotary Club of Parma “Giuseppe Verdi”, she is working on a book on the dramatic functions of the instrumental component in Verdi’s operas.

Coming soon!

Larry Wolff is the Silver Professor of History at New York University, Executive Director of the NYU Remarque Institute, and Co-Director of NYU Florence. His most recent book is The Singing Turk: Ottoman Power and Operatic Emotions on the European Stage from the Siege of Vienna to the Age of Napoleon (2016). He is also the author of Paolina’s Innocence: Child Abuse in Casanova’s Venice (2012), The Idea of Galicia: History and Fantasy in Habsburg Political Culture (2010), Venice and the Slavs: The Discovery of Dalmatia in the Age of Enlightenment (2001), Inventing Eastern Europe: The Map of Civilization on the Mind of the Enlightenment (1994), The Vatican and Poland in the Age of the Partitions (1988); and Postcards From the End of the World: Child Abuse in Freud’s Vienna (1988). His next forthcoming book (2020) is Woodrow Wilson and the Reimagining of Eastern Europe. He has received Fulbright, American Council of Learned Societies, and Guggenheim fellowships, and he is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Coming soon!