Visiting Professors 2024

Sourour Elloumi
ENSTA - Institut Polytechnique de Paris (France)
Visiting the Department of Computer, Control, and Management Engineering Antonio Ruberti from 08/06/2025 to 09/07/2025
Host Professor: Laura Palagi
The visit aims at research collaboration on Nonlinear Integer Programming applied to Machine Learning. The objective is to develop exact methods and heuristics for solving Mixed-Integer Nonlinear problems arising in Machine Learning, by combining branch-and-bound techniques with the definition of effective bounds based on SemiDefinite Programming relaxations.

Sandra Laugier
Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (France)
Visiting the Department of Philosophy from 01/05/2025 to 31/05/2025
Host Professor: Piergiorgio Donatelli
The research will focus on the development of an ethical perspective inspired by ordinary language philosophy and the Wittgensteinian tradition. This approach aims to investigate the moral dimension of everyday life, as opposed to the normative models typical of ethical theories. At the core of the investigation is the transformative role of television serial narratives in shaping the contemporary moral imagination, with particular attention to the representation of care practices, personal relationships, and ordinary moral contexts.

Corina Ecaterina Croitoru
Babeș-Bolyai University of Cluj-Napoca (Romania)
Visiting the Department of European, American and Intercultural Studies from 01/03/2025 to 30/05/2025
Host Professor: Angela Tarantino
The objective of the visit is to support the exchange of knowledge within the academic community and to promote the establishment of meaningful professional connections that can enhance ongoing research and potential collaborations.

Yves Ville
Université Paris Cité (France)
Visiting the Department of Maternal-Child Health and Urologic Sciences from 12/04/2025 to 11/05/2025
Host Professor: Giuseppe Rizzo
The visit will involve the supervision of two ongoing projects on fetal growth in twins and the early diagnosis of fetal CMV infection, including the development of the study design, selection of appropriate methodologies, identification of primary and secondary outcomes, creation of electronic data collection tools, and finalization of protocols for submission to the ethics committee.
Prof. Carlen has collaborations with colleagues in the Mathematics department focused on the determination of the spectral gap for a class of Kac-type energy exchange models.

Katherine Dorothea Gibson
Western Sydney University Australia
Visiting the Department of Methods and Models for Economics, Territory and Finance from 26/05/2025 to 25/06/2025
Host Professor: Cesare Di Feliciantonio
Teaching activity within the PhD program: Community and Diverse Economies Research and Practice

Tania Al Saadi
Stockholm University (Sweden)
Visiting the Italian Institute of Oriental Studies from 2/05/2025 to 30/05/2025
Host Professor: Ada Barbaro
The visit aims at sharing experience in the field of research and teaching of Modern Arabic literature, gathering material and developing a topic for a research paper on the theme of violence and trauma in Arabic novels, holding a seminar for colleagues and PhD students on a newly edited volume on food in Arabic literature, in which research topics and methodology in literary food studies and analysis of Modern Arabic fiction will be discussed, finally exploring the possibilities for future collaboration in research and teaching with the host department.

Francesco Ricatti
The Australian National University (Australia)
Visiting the Department of Letters and modern Cultures from 20/12/2025 to 20/12/2025
Host Professor: Caterina Romeo
During the fellowship at Sapienza, the aim is to further develop a transcultural and decolonial approach to research on Italian-Indigenous relations in history, art, literature, and ethnography. The project includes the production of both scholarly and educational resources in Italian and English, as well as the pursuit of art and research grant opportunities. There will also be a contribution to the teaching of a course on race, gender, and migration, focusing on gender and transgender perspectives at the intersection of Indigenous, settler colonial, critical race, migration, and more-than-human studies.

Prof. Athi N Naganathan
Indian Institute of Technology Madras (India)
Visiting the Department of Chemistry from 23/04/2025 to 23/05/2025
Host Professor: Marco D’Abramo
The primary aim of the visit is to deliver research lectures on protein folding and teaching students, apart from fostering collaborations with various groups at the Sapienza University of Rome. The visit will also serve as a platform to strengthen the existing research collaboration between my group and that of Profs. Marco D'Abramo and Alessandra Del Giudice. The research themes will cover classical protein folding approaches and mechanisms, statistical models, and phase separation in biology.

Claudia Shmidt
Universidad Torcuato Di Tella (Argentina)
Visiting the Department of Civil, Building and Environmental Engineering from 31/10/2025to 30/11/2025
Host Professor: Edoardo Currà
The project focuses on Giulio Pizzetti’s influence on architectural modernization in Argentina (1948–1953), particularly his concept of “structural architecture,” teaching activities, and professional network. It also includes participation in academic panels and lectures on modern construction culture in Argentina, emphasizing the exchange between Italian, French, and German architectural and engineering practices.

Ignacio Gallego Domínguez
Universidad De Córdoba (Spain)
Visiting the Department of Business Law and Economics from 22/04/2025 to 21/05/2025
Host Professor: Valerio Pescatore
Research Project: “Voluntary Representation in Italian and Spanish Civil Law”
This project aims to conduct a comparative legal study between Italian and Spanish law concerning the concept of voluntary representation. It is an opportune moment to reconsider the classical institutions of civil law.
The performance of legal acts by a person through a voluntary representative is a common and ordinary occurrence, serving as a mechanism to broaden individuals’ capacity for legal action. Numerous issues arise in connection with the legal act of granting power of attorney and its relationship with the representative legal transaction. The study will be based on the positive legislation of both Italy and Spain, the doctrinal interpretations, and the case law developed by the courts, all examined in light of soft law texts regarding the harmonization of the law of obligations and contracts.

Emiliano Treré
Universidad de Valencia (Spain)
Visiting the Department of Communication and Social Research from 30/05/2025 to 06/07/2025
Host Professor: Francesca Comunello
The visit aims to develop a new interdisciplinary framework connecting algorithmic activism, environmental social movements, and protests against data centres. It will address how environmental concerns intersect with algorithmic media and digital activism. The project will map literature, define research goals and methods, and build an international network of scholars in data, AI, and environmental studies. It also includes two PhD seminars on hybrid ethnographic methods and the conceptual challenges of studying data and AI, fostering collaboration and laying the groundwork for future EU funding applications.

Jacobo Toràn
University of Ulm (Germany)
Visiting the Department of Computer, Control and Management Engineering from 16/03/2025 to 16/04/2025
Host Professor: Nicola Galesi
Professor Jacobo Toràn visit’s purpose was to give special lectures on topics concerning Complexity Theory and in particular about these topics: (1) Approximation Algorithms, (2) The complexity of SAT-solving procedures; (3) The Graph Isomorphism problem.

Enrique Javier Nuñez
Universidad de Buenos Aires (Argentina)
Visiting the Department of History, Representation and Restoration of Architecture from 1/10/2025 to 30/10/2025.
Host Professor: Tommaso Empler
The main purpose of the visit is to actively participate in two seminars on HBIM and the use of digital twins for historic buildings and urban environments. The first seminar will address the application of HBIM in restoration, while the second will explore the role of digital twins in architectural and urban heritage. The collaboration between the FADU-UBA and La Sapienza University of Rome seeks to consolidate and institutionalize the academic exchanges already initiated and develop a solid collaborative network between the two institutions.
The internationalization of doctoral research, the development of joint projects, and the creation of shared training programs are fundamental objectives of this initiative.

Raphaelle Grifone
Sorbonne Université (France)
Visiting the Department of Human anatomy, Histology, Forensic medicine and Orthopedics, from 14/04/2025 to 15/06/2025
Host Professor: Maurilio Sampaolesi
Teaching Histology and Embryology at the International Medical School.

Francesca Valsecchi Tongji University (China)
Visiting the Department of Planning, Design and Technology from 28/02/2025 to 01/04/2025
Host Professor: Lorenzo Imbesi
She proposes an Innovation Workshop for the Master Course of PSSD (Product Service System Design) in the framework of ""Further Learning Activities"", titled ""CCCities / Bioregional Futures: Designing for Urban Cycles of Life, Conviviality and Care"".
In the workshop, students are challenged to learn theoretical and methodological tools of system thinking and to apply them on a urban-scale design brief based on regenerative design and bio-regionalism. Different thematic directions (Bioregional Commons & Regenerative Flows // Rituals of Conviviality & Public Space Activations // Design for Slow & Deep Time) allow students to prototype new relationships between people, places, and ecosystems, integrating ecological literacy, urban stewardship, and more-than-human perspectives into the metabolism of cities. Prof. Valsecchi offered research methodology seminars at the PhD programme in Service Design for Public Sector, in particular on the topic of research paradigm and the definition of research protocols.

Angélica De Sena
Universidad de Buenos Aires (Argentina)
Visiting the Department of Social and Economics Sciences from 13/03/2025 to 10/06/2025
Host Professor: Marina Ciampi
The purpose of the visit focuses on social policies and the connections between the image as part of the so-called “social question” and the development of the capitalist system. In recent decades, globally, social policies addressing poverty have been on the rise, and their designs generally present three main characteristics: they are targeted at women, they are monetary subsidies, and they are massive, giving way to other conditions of production and reproduction of life, to the development of sociabilities, symbolic and cognitive-affective practices, and, therefore, to new forms of social structuring. This shapes the structure of sensibilities that affect the daily ways of life and the experiences of the recipient subjects. The aim is to discuss socio-territorial changes, images of urban poverty, and uncertainty, and to analyze the modifications in the social structure.

Heike Oberlin
Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen (Germany)
Visiting the Department of History, Anthropology, Religion, Art and Performing Arts from 20 /03/2025 to 18/04/2025
Host Professor: Vito Di Bernardi
She will be working on the research project “Text to Actress: Female Roles, Textuality and Performance in Indian Kūṭiyāṭṭam Theatre”. She will hold a series of cross-disciplinary sessions, open to students of the Music and Performance and Asian and African Civilization’s PhD programmes, focusing on the texts of the Kūṭiyāṭṭam repertoire. In addition, a practical workshop entitled “Emotions – Body – Text in Indian Performing Traditions” on acting techniques in Indian theatre and their transmission will be held at the Teatro Ateneo.

John Byrd
Argonne National Laboratory (USA)
Visiting the Department of Basic and Applied Sciences for Engineering from 21/03/2025 to 21/06/2025.
Host professor: Mauro Migliorati
The goal of the visit is to contribute to the design and specification of a 25 MeV electron linac as a research platform for developing "Flash" radiation therapy. The goal is to use C-Band RF technology as the basis for this linac which is now maturing into the technology of choice for new linac designs.

Hans Knuepfer
University of Heidelberg (Germany)
Visiting the Department of Basic and Applied Sciences for Engineering from 15/03/2025 to 14/04/2025
Host professor: Lorenzo Giacomelli
The aim of the visit is to investigate well-posedness and regularity theories for thin-film equations.

Katarzyna Michaud
University center of legal medicine Lausanne-Geneva (Switzerland)
Visiting the Department of Human Neurosciences from 11/05/2025 to 10/06/2025
Host professor: Stefano Ferracuti
The main aim of the visit will be to teach forensic medicine to medical students and doctors in postgraduate training, and as far as possible to develop future collaboration between our universities.

Eric Carlen
Rutgers University – USA
Visiting the Department of Mathematics from 17/02/2025 -17/03/2025
Host professor: Emanuele Caglioti
Prof. Carlen participates in the winter school of the scientific period "Statistical Mechanics and Non-equilibrium Processes", helding the Ph.D. course Quantum Markov Semigroups in Non-equilibrium Statistical Physics.
Prof. Carlen has collaborations with colleagues in the Mathematics department focused on the determination of the spectral gap for a class of Kac-type energy exchange models.

Fraydoun Rezakhanlou
University of California Berkeley- USA
Visiting the Department of Mathematics from 20/03/2025 – 20/04/2025
Host professor: Giada Basile
This research project aims to analyze the large deviations of a space-dependent microscopic stochastic dynamics, whose typical behaviour is described by the Boltzmann equation. We want to extend the result obtained in [Rezakhanlou 1994] to the case of no-restriction on the velocity set. In particular this will provide the characterization of the solution to the Boltzmann equation as the zero level set of an explicit functional. By results in [Basile et. al. 2024], we still expect to observe atypical paths which non-conserving energy. This generalization from a finite-velocity set to an unbounded one is highly non-trivial. The derivation of a discrete Boltzmann equation, i.e. with finite velocity set, from a non-homogeneous stochastic dynamics is global in time, while there exists no global in time derivation of the Boltzmann equation, even from microscopic stochastic dynamics. However, the standard large deviation upper bound argument is a quite robust strategy which provides a global in time characterization of the solution to the Boltzmann equation, thus overcoming the small-time restriction in [Bodineau et. al. 2023]. We do not expect a matching upper and lower bound for all paths, but for a restricted class as in [Basile et. al. 2024], therefore including increasing energy solutions.

Michela Turrin
Delft University of Technology - Netherlands
Visiting the Department of Civil, Building and Environmental Engineering from 28/04/2025 - 30/05/2025
Host professor: Marco Ferrero
My work operates at the intersection of architectural design, building engineering and computer science. It develops computational methods and related digital tools for Design Space Exploration to support integral decision making in early design stages. It aims to integrating human factors into digital processes and tools. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is used as enabling technology widening the range of predictive models, including to simulate human behaviour in virtual environments (human-centric predictive models); and develop computational design methods incorporating designers’ interactions (interactive design exploration). It focuses on the human factor in AI-supported workflows, advocating for hybrid intelligence.

Zachary Lesser
University of Pennsylvania – USA
Visiting the Department of European, American and Intercultural Studies from 26/05/2025 to 24/06/2025
Host professor: Iolanda Plescia
I will be working on the Arden Shakespeare fourth series edition of Macbeth, researching with Prof. Iolanda Plescia current editorial and textual theory, and working with her to run several student-centered workshops on editing and other issues in current Shakespeare studies.

Annalisa Pastore
King's College London – United Kingdom
Visiting the Department of Biochemistry from 26/02/2025 to 25/05/2025
Host professor: Alberto Boffi
Collaboration on a number of projects including the drug delivery of RNA aptamers anti-TDP-43.

Maria del Pilar Pérez Álvarez
Autonomous University of Madrid – Spain
Visiting the Department of Law and Economics of Productive Activities from 1/07/2025 to 31/07/2025
Host professor: Vincenzo Barba
Substitute measures and decision support: Disability issues from a historical and comparative perspective, After Law 8/2021, June 2nd, which reforms civil and procedural legislation for the support of persons with disabilities in the exercise of their legal capacity, with measures inspired by the principles of necessity and proportionality, respect for the dignity of persons and the protection of their fundamental rights, it is necessary to review: (a) The classic dichotomy between legal capacity and capacity to act; (b) The institutions of substitution and support in Roman law and their subsequent development; (c) The study of the most recent Spanish and Italian doctrinal opinions and case law.

Valeria Giannella
Universidade Federal do Sul da Bahia - Brazil
Visiting the Department of Civil, Building and Environmental Engineering from 02/02/2025 to 30/04/2025
Host professor: Carlo Cellamare
The purpose of the period is to investigate some experiences of urban and territorial regeneration to verify their structural characteristics and their ability to produce common goods, even in the absence of public support. The concept of autonomy acts as a guide, alluding to the possible co-creation between public institutions and self-organized communities. The possibility of building conceptual relationships between cases and analyses developed in Italy and others developed in Brazil by the visitor is of interest.
Key-words: Public Experiences; Autonomy; Democratic experimentation; South-North comparison.

Laura Leante
Durham University – United Kingdom
Visiting the of Department of modern Letters and Cultures from 20/01/2025 to 18/02/2025
Host professor: Giovanni Giuriati
The programme aims to carry out research on the music of the South Asian diaspora in Rome. The initial goal is to map South Asian musical practices across the city, through a study of the field and meetings with key figures from the local community. Focussed research will then be developed in collaboration with colleagues from La Sapienza working on the local Indian and Bangladeshi communities and on music diasporas (an area of recent major growth within Italian Ethnomusicology).
The project will develop existing collaboration between La Sapienza and Durham University, through a formal research partnership and laying the groundwork for a longer lasting cooperation.

Martina Löw
TU Berlin, Institute for Sociology – Germany
Visiting the of Department of Economical and Sociological Science from 15/02/2025 to 15/03/2025
Host professor: Letteria G. Fassari
Collaboration with Letteria G. Fassari on the quality of spaces and cultural sociology

Veronica Albanese
Universidad de Granada – Spain
Visiting the of Department of Mathematics from 31/03/2025 to 30/04/2025
Host professor: Alessandro Gambini
The aim of the research project is to explore and map in depth the cognitive and operational strategies adopted by students when constructing plane figures using an orthogonal geoplane. The focus is on investigating how these strategies interact and influence each other with the measurement techniques employed, particularly when dealing with problems that involve specific conditions relating to area and perimeter measurements.

Philippe Rahm
Ecole Nationale Supérieure d'Architecture de Versailles (France)
Visiting the of Department of Planning, Design, Technology of Architecture from 01/04/2025 to 30/06/2025
Host professor: Alessandra Battisti
Architecture and urbanism were traditionally based on climate, where exposure to wind and sun influenced the forms of cities and buildings. These fundamental causes were ignored in the 20th century thanks to the enormous use of fossil energy that today causes global warming. Faced with the climatic challenges, we propose to reset our discipline on its intrinsic atmospheric qualities, where air, light, heat or humidity are recognized are materials of building, convection, conduction, evaporation, emissivity, or effusivity are becoming design tools for composing architecture and cities, and through dialectical materialism, are able to revolutionize esthetic and social values. The main purpose of the visit will be to conduct urban and architecture research and design in the Italian warming climate.

Aylin Sahin
University College Cork -Ireland
Visiting the Department of Environmental Biology from 12/05/2025 to 15/06/2025
Host professor: Emanuele Zannini
She is a lecturer and researcher in Sustainable Food Systems in the School of Food and Nutritional Sciences in University College Cork, Ireland. Her research includes plant-based foods with a strong interest in upcycling food production side-steams using minimal processing techniques and the evaluation of the nutritional value (in vitro digestibility, bioavailability, glycaemic response) and environmental impact (Life Cycle Assessment). During her stay in Sapienza University, she will deliver a postgraduate lecture series on Sustainable Food Systems tailored to the Italian food value chain. The objective is to provide students with tools which enables them to analyse the different agri-food processes that characterize the national food and wine excellences (DOP, IGP, STG) and to understand the different profiles of environmental, economic and social sustainability. At the end of the lecture series the students will be able to identify certain social, economic, or environmental risks in the food supply chain and develop solutions which will facilitate food industry to enhance their sustainability strategy.

Jana Zapletalová
Palacký University Olomouc - Czech Republic
Visiting the Department of History, Anthropology, Religions, Art History, Media And Performing Arts from 15/01/2025 to 15/02/2025
Host professor: Massimo Moretti
During her research stay, Jana Zapletalová, who focuses on art and visual culture of the early modern period, will work together with her host Prof. Massimo Moretti to complete a joint monograph “Pietro de Petri in the archive of Antonio Maria Graziani. A portrait of modern Europe between art, diplomacy, politics and religion”. Together they will focus on the analysis and interpretation of archival documents and artworks. They will study the historical events of the period of ecclesiastical reform between Italy and Central Europe in the artistic, ecclesiastical and diplomatic spheres, using the example of the life of the painter Pietro de Petri, who worked mainly in present-day Italy and the Czech Republic.

Rob van Glabbeek
University of Edinburgh – United Kingdom
Visiting the Department of Computer Science from 1/05/2025 to 30/05/2025
Host professor: Daniele Gorla
During this visit Professor van Glabbeek will be studying advances in concurrency theory in collaboration with his host, Professor Daniele Gorla. They will focus, amongst others, on the relative expressiveness of specification languages, liveness properties of distributed systems and the necessary fairness assumptions, and the precise assumptions that are needed to ensure mutual exclusion. In previous work on these topics, complications have been found that require an overhaul of basic concurrency theory, and this will one of the main items on the agenda. Professor van Glabbeek also will do some teaching in a master degree course on concurrent systems.

Koray Aydin
Northwestern University – USA
Visiting the Department of Basic and Applied Sciences for Engineering from 23/06/2025 to 21/07/2025
Host professor: Maria Cristina Larciprete
I intend to continue my productive collaboration with Prof. Maria Cristina Larciprete's group, focusing on the emerging optical and thermal properties of low-symmetry oxide thin films in the infrared spectrum. Our efforts thus far have primarily centered on studying optical properties and designing prototype devices. Moving forward, we aim to explore practical applications, such as radiative cooling and vibrational sensing. My visit will foster discussions to help spearhead new advancements in infrared technology through collaborative and innovative approaches.

Andrea Alù
City University of New York – USA
Visiting the Department of Basic and Applied Sciences for Engineering from 20/06/2025 to 19/07/2025
Host professor: Maria Cristina Larciprete
Collaboration on polaritonic metasurfaces