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Head of Unit
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Manfredi Valeriani
Manfredi Valeriani earned his PhD at Hamburg University and Luiss University with a thesis on “Funding Instruments to Italian NGOs” is a Post-Doctoral Researcher at Luiss where he also teaches Political Risk Analysis and International Politics and Businesses. He has been Adjunct Professor at the University “L’Orientale” in Naples and at the American University of Rome. His research currently focuses on Structured Analytic Techniques, Scenario Analysis, and Italian Foreign Policy.
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Marc Reverdin
Marc Reverdin is an international expert in public affairs and strategic diplomacy. He is the founder and CEO of Reverdin Consulting, a high-level advisory firm that helps companies and institutions navigate major geopolitical, economic, and environmental challenges. A former French diplomat, he served in Paris, Rome, and the services of the French Prime Minister before co-founding the Paris Peace Forum, an initiative of the French President launched in 2018. He now leads or advises several international initiatives, particularly in the agrifood, African, and Mediterranean sectors. Marc is also a frequent speaker, high-level moderator, and lecturer in international affairs.
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Marco Massoni
Marco Massoni (PhD, Rome 1972) is an independent political analyst and international relations expert, specialist in Africa, Latin America, and Extra-Western philosophies. Since 2022, he has been teaching African Studies at LUISS University of Rome. As of 2025, he directs the Africa and Latin America Research Unit at LUISS’s Centre for International and Strategic Studies (CISS). Previously, he served as Diplomatic Senior Advisor for the Italian G8 Presidency and worked with the EU, OSCE, UN (FAO, UNHCR), NGOs, and think tanks. From 2011 to 2017, he was Director of African Research at IRAD at the Italian Centre for Defence Higher Studies (CASD), where he still lectures. He was Editorial Director of the quarterly Politica Africana. He has taught Development Studies at The American University of Rome (AUR) and International Law and Peace Processes at Roma Tre University. He is a consultant of the European Union External Action Service (EEAS) and the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), extensive experience in the field of democratisation processes, electoral observation & electoral assistance, diplomacy & negotiation, cyber-diplomacy, human rights & humanitarian law, mediation, peacebuilding & conflict resolution, post-war reconstruction and strategic studies.
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Maria Giulia Amadio Viceré
Maria Giulia Amadio Vicerè is Assistant Professor (Tenure Track) in Political Science at the Department of Political Science of Luiss University and a Visiting Fellow at the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies (EUI). Before that, she has been a Marie Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow at Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies (EUI), an Adjunct Professor and post-doctoral fellow at Luiss University, and an Assistant Professor at Leiden University. She held various visiting positions in international renowned institutions, among which the German Institute for International Affairs, the Centre for European Studies at Harvard University, the Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies at the University of Washington, and the Policy Institute at King’s College. Over time, she has also been the recipient of merit-based scholarships and grants from the European Commission; the Zegna Group; the Lazio Region; and the The Australian Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethic. Beyond academia, she has been a Research Associate at the Istituto Affari Internazionali, a Research Fellow at the Policy Planning Unit of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, a Blue Book Trainee at the Service for Foreign Policy Instrument of the European Commission and a research intern at the European Policy Centre. Moreover, she has briefed and provided training to public and private institutions, among which the Institute for Advanced Studies of the Italian Ministry of Defence, Oxford Analytica, the European Institute for the Mediterranean, the Swedish Institute for European Studies, the Foundation for European Progressive Studies, Villa Vigoni, and il Sole 24 Ore Business School.
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Marlène Agnès Laruelle
Marlene Laruelle is a Full Professor of Political Science at Luiss Guido Carli University and previously served as Research Professor at The George Washington University’s Institute for European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies (IERES) from 2011 to 2025, where she held leadership roles as Associate Director and Director. She earned her Ph.D. in History from INALCO in Paris and a habilitation in Political Science from Sciences Po Paris. Laruelle leads the Illiberalism Studies Program, a transatlantic platform dedicated to research on illiberalism and postliberalism, and is a non-residential Senior Fellow at the Stimson Center. Throughout her career, she has held fellowships and visiting appointments at notable institutions such as the Institut für die Wissenschaften vom Menschen in Vienna, IFRI, the Carnegie Council, the Woodrow Wilson Center, and SAIS–Johns Hopkins University. She has authored or edited over twenty books with top academic presses, including recent monographs like Ideology and Meaning-Making under Putin Regime (2025) and Russia’s Arctic: A Changing Geopolitical and Environmental Context (2026), alongside numerous articles in leading scholarly and policy publications.
Trained as a historian of ideas, Laruelle’s early work focused on post-Soviet Central Asia and Russia, examining nation-building processes, regional geopolitics, labor migration, and the intellectual underpinnings of Putin’s regime. Her research later expanded to the Russian Arctic, exploring how environmental change, infrastructure development, and territorial imaginaries influence political worldviews. More recently, she has turned to conceptual history and global comparative studies, analyzing the challenges facing liberalism and the emerging normative alternatives to the liberal international order. Her scholarship bridges academic rigor with policy relevance, offering insights into the evolving political and intellectual dynamics of Russia and the broader international system.
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Researcher
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Glauco Calzuola
Glauco Calzuola is an international consultant and former EU Ambassador with extensive experience in international relations, development, and Europe-Africa relations. His career began as an infrastructure engineer before transitioning to roles within the European Commission. A significant portion of his work has been focused on fostering cooperation and development in Africa. He served as Head of Delegation in Rwanda from 1997 to 2000. Following this, he returned to HQ to lead negotiations with West African and Central African countries. His expertise led to his appointment as EU Ambassador in Angola in 2002, where he served until 2006, followed by a similar role in Mozambique from 2006 to 2011. These ambassadorships highlight his skills in diplomacy and managing international relations at a high level. From 2011 to 2015, he served at the General Directorate for International Cooperation and Development. His career reflects a deep commitment to international development and cooperation, particularly within the African context.
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Grazia Covotta
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Hans Ole Mueller
Hans Ole Müller has a background in international supply chain management and operations in both corporate and donor-funded environments. During and after his Bachelor Degree in Logistics Management from the Hamburg School of Business Administration, he worked for six years for the liner shipping company Hapag-Lloyd as well as the Copenhagen-based social start-up 4Life Solutions.
In his Master’s thesis at LUISS (M.Sc. Global Management & Politics), he focused on humanitarian aid and the operational reality of delivering aid to the people it was intended for. Title: “Feeding the Hungry, Not the System: How can the World Food Programme Prevent Aid Diversion in Fragile States?”
He is interested in humanitarian logistics, agrifood supply chains, maritime economy, and international cooperation.
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Ibrahim Assane Mayaki
Ibrahim Assane Mayaki, former Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of Niger. Previously he worked as senior manager of the uranium industry in Niger. He is a former Chief Executive Officer of the NPCA (New Partnership for Africa’s Development-NEPAD Planning and Coordinating Agency), which he transformed into the African Union Development Agency (AUDA-NEPAD) between 2009 and 2022, and he is former President of the OECD Sahel and West Africa Club (SWAC). He graduated from the Ecole Nationale d’Administration Publique of Quebec, Canada and holds a PhD in Administrative Sciences from the University of Paris I. Since 2022, he has been co-teaching the course on African Politics and Institutions at LUISS University in Rome. Since 2023, he has been the African Union Special Envoy for Food Systems.
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Ilaria Cinelli
Ilaria Cinelli is a senior engineer and leader in healthcare and space exploration with over a decade of experience. Her expertise includes space medicine, expeditions, and global health initiatives. She holds degrees in biomedical engineering and a doctorate in neural engineering. Ilaria is a fellow of the Aerospace Medical Association and co-chairs an educational curriculum on Space and Global Health with the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs and the World Health Organization. She is a prolific author, speaker, and recipient of numerous awards, shaping the future of space and healthcare.
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Ilaria Lorusso
Ilaria Lorusso is a PhD candidate in Politics at LUISS Guido Carli. Her research focuses on EU external action, particularly in migration policy, and on the role of gender in EU foreign policy. She holds a Research Master in European Studies from Maastricht University, where she also held the role of research assistant within the EU-funded PhD program “LIMES – The Hardening and Softening of Borders: Europe in a Globalizing World” and later of teaching fellow for the European Studies and Global Studies programs. She is currently a teaching assistant at LUISS.
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Ilaria Tani
Attorney-at-Law in Milan (Italy). Associate Professor of International Law of the Sea, Ocean Affairs Law and Policy, Maritime Law (Master courses), and Polar Law (PhD course) at University of Milano-Bicocca (Italy). Deputy-Director of the PhD programme in Marine Sciences, Technology and Management at University of Milano-Bicocca and the Italian Institute of Technology (IIT). Scientific Advisor to the Italian Navy since 2023. Visiting Fellow at Center of Maritime Military Studies, Venice, since 2026. Visiting lecturer at NATO Defense College and other higher education institutions. Member of the Italian Delegation in United Nations’ and International Hydrographic Organization’s working groups, negotiations, and processes related to the law of the sea, including its technical aspects. Legal consultant for States, private sector, and international secretariats on matters related to the law of the sea. Former Associate Legal Officer at the Division for Ocean Affairs and the Law of the Sea, Office of Legal Affairs, United Nations (UNDOALOS, New York, United States).
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Irene Morlino
Dr Irene Morlino is a Visiting Fellow in the Department of International Relations at the London School of Economics (LSE) and a Visiting Professor in International Conflict Management at ESADE in Barcelona. She is also a Project Associate with the LSE IDEAS project Si Vis Pacem: Reimagining Security through Peace.
Her research focuses on humanitarian aid and conflict management, as well as European foreign, security and defence policy. Her latest book, Humanitarian Aid and the European Union: An Analysis of its Effectiveness in the Field (Routledge, 2026), offers an empirical and comparative analysis of the effectiveness of humanitarian aid programmes in Myanmar, Lebanon, Mozambique and Mali.
She was previously an LSE Fellow in European Security and Defence, teaching undergraduate and graduate courses in international politics and European security and defence. She received the LSE Class Teacher Award in 2021–2022 and was awarded the Dominique Jacquin-Berdal Prize for the best PhD thesis in LSE’s Department of International Relations.
Dr Morlino has been a Visiting Scholar at the Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies at Harvard University and a Visiting PhD Fellow at the Institut Barcelona d’Estudis Internacionals (IBEI). She has also worked with international organisations, including the World Bank, the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) in Rome, and International IDEA at the United Nations in New York.
She holds a PhD in International Relations from LSE, a Master’s in European Affairs from Sciences Po Paris, and a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science from LUISS Guido Carli.
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Irene Olmi
Irene Olmi joined Reverdin Consulting in April 2025 as a consultant, specialising in the agrifood sector and contributing to the firm’s work on sustainable food systems and multilateral organizations. Within CISS, she supports Marc Reverdin as a Strategic Advisor in the Agrifood Unit. Irene previously worked as an EU Policy Consultant in Brussels with a focus on the agrifood, tech, and defence sectors. She holds two Master’s degrees from SOAS, University of London, in International Politics and Diplomatic Studies.
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Irene Rusconi