Justyna Orłowska - VISION

How did Early Holocene hunter-gatherer-fishers of the Central European Plain use macrolithic tools in their daily activities, resource-processing practices, and settlement organization? VISION aims to reconstruct the role of macrolithic tools (MLTs) in Early Holocene hunter-gatherer-fisher communities of the Central European Plain through multidisciplinary use-wear, residue, and spatial analyses of Mesolithic assemblages from Polish open-air sandy sites. By integrating the life histories of MLTs with available contextual data, the project will elucidate settlement activities and resource-processing practices, while also providing a broader comparative framework for similar European collections. Research will be conducted at the Diet and Ancient Technology (DANTE) laboratory under the supervision of Prof. Emanuela Cristiani.

Supervisor: Prof.ssa Emanuela Cristiani
Department: Scienze odontostomatologiche e maxillo-facciali

Virginia Lauria - POV

POV examines the overlooked poetic works of Giuliano Dati (1445–1524) to demonstrate how Italian popular literature conveyed curial ideology by making the theological foundations of papal power accessible to a broad audience. Through a comprehensive analysis of Dati’s corpus, the study reveals how these poems articulate and disseminate a vision of a global papacy endowed with both spiritual and temporal authority, thereby illuminating processes of cultural mediation, identity formation, and the circulation of ideas in early modern Europe and beyond.

Supervisor: Prof. Gaetano Lettieri
Department: Storia, Antropologia, Religione, Arte, Spettacolo

Maria Giulia Tullo - PUERIS

Processing and Understanding of Early Remembering: origins and neural correlates of autobiographical memory beyond Infantile amnesia. 
Il progetto PUERIS si pone l’obiettivo di realizzare il primo studio di neuroimaging multimodale sullo sviluppo della memoria autobiografica nella prima infanzia (a 4, 6 e 8 anni), contribuendo in modo innovativo alla comprensione dei processi cognitivi e delle basi neurali strutturali e funzionali dell’amnesia infantile. Il progetto integra un’esperienza saliente in un contesto museale con tecniche avanzate di neuroimaging funzionale (risonanza magnetica e spettroscopia nel vicino infrarosso, fNIRS), al fine di indagare lo sviluppo delle strutture neurali coinvolte nei processi di codifica, consolidamento e recupero dei ricordi personali.

Supervisor: Prof.ssa Maddalena Boccia 
Department: Psicologia

Fransson Matilda - SALIENT

The SALIENT project aims to develop a non-toxic, next-generation sodium-ion battery by replacing environmentally harmful electrolyte salts, solvents, binders, and rare-earth-based cathode materials with sustainable alternatives. By redesigning these connected components as an integrated system, the project seeks to deliver an environmentally responsible battery technology.

Supervisor: Prof. Sergio Brutti
Department: Chimica

Antonio Laudando - GeoPlaReg

The platformisation of capitalism has concentrated vast economic power in the hands of a few dominant digital business platforms, known as gatekeepers. These actors often exploit their position at the expense of other businesses and end-users, undermining contestability, fairness, and innovativeness of digital markets. To counter these risks, the EU introduced the Digital Markets Act (DMA). Although the DMA has attracted huge scholarly attention, two gaps persist: the absence of dynamic analysis of its impact on innovation-based competition, and the neglect of its geopolitical dimension within State platform capitalism. This project addresses both gaps. By grounding in the dynamic competition paradigm and integrating economic-legal analysis with geopolitical insights, it aims to clarify the DMA's impacts on innovation-based competition and its broader role in shaping Europe's digital sovereignty in an era of intensifying US-China technological rivalry.

Supervisor: Prof.ssa Cristina Simone
Department: Management

Federico Stella - SPIRIT

SPIRIT aims to produce a philological and historical study of the Spiritual Conversations (Muṣāḥaba rūḥāniyya), a work on Islam and the Qur’an attributed to Giovanni Battista Eliano (1530–1589), a Jewish convert to Christianity who later became a member of the Society of Jesus. The work enjoyed wide circulation in the early modern period: it was translated into English in the seventeenth century, and manuscript copies continued to be produced until the nineteenth century. The project will be carried out at the Department of SARAS, Sapienza University of Rome; the Institute for Advanced Jesuit Studies at Boston College; and CEDRAC at Université Saint Joseph of Beirut.

Supervisor: Prof. Marco Di Branco
Department: Storia, Antropologia, Religione, Arte, Spettacolo

Guido Venturini - SAINTS

SAINTS investigates a corpus of hagiographical texts translated from Greek into Syriac in Late Antiquity through an innovative system of Digital Scholarly Editions, which combines traditional textual criticism with digital stemmatology. The project aims to examine the circulation and transformation of texts across different Christian communities and linguistic traditions by analyzing textual variants and recensions, while exploring both the potential and the limits of the "artificial philologist”.

Supervisor:  Prof. Alberto Camplani
Department: Storia, Antropologia, Religione, Arte, Spettacolo

Andrea Pintimalli - NONVIOLENTISLAM 

The NONVIOLENTISLAM project examines how Jawdat Saʿīd (1931-2022, Sunni) and Muhammad al-Shirazi (1928-2001, Shia) have articulated an Islamic tradition of nonviolence through engagement with classical and contemporary sources.
Its central hypothesis is that this tradition is a modern historical and discursive construct, shaped in dialogue with contemporary pacifism.
The project integrates academic research, interreligious dialogue, and public outreach, in line with the UN 2030 Agenda and education for peace and human rights.

Supervisor: Prof. Di Marco Branco
Department: Storia, Antropologia, Religione, Arte, Spettacolo

Lara Demori - MATRICA

Il progetto MATRICA indaga come, tra la fine degli anni Settanta e gli anni Novanta, il corpo materno sia emerso nell’arte latinoamericana come spazio di conflitto politico e simbolico, in un contesto segnato da regimi autoritari e dalla crescita dei movimenti femministi. Attraverso casi studio in Messico, Argentina, Perù e altri contesti, la ricerca esamina come le artiste abbiano messo in discussione i modelli idealizzati di maternità mediante rappresentazioni distopiche, abiette e frammentate. L’obiettivo è ricostruire la produzione e la circolazione di queste immagini, analizzarne i registri affettivi — tra orrore e mostruosità — e collocarle entro più ampi quadri storici, politici e sociali.

Supervisor: Prof. Raffaele Bedarida
Department: Storia, Antropologia, Religione, Arte, Spettacolo

Flavia Palmieri - Oikosophia

The project investigates the philosophical perspectives of ancient οἰκονομία through the analysis of classical texts on hosehold and property managment, exploring concepts of wealth, possession, family and social roles, as well as ethical and political implications. It also reconstructs the modern reception of these texts and their theoretical impact on contemporary philosophical debate. 

Supervisor: Prof. Emidio Spinelli
Department: Filosofia