Training
Graduated from Medical School at the University of Bologna in 2003, she specialised in Infectious Diseases at the University of Pavia in 2007, and in Public Health at the University of Bologna in 2014. In the same university, she successfully completed a PhD programme with a research dissertation titled “Social movements and health: a participatory action-research. New practices in health promotion centered on the notions of collective, commons and sustainability of the planet”.
Over the years, she integrated her 'traditional' medical training with postgraduate courses in Medical Anthropology (University of Milan Bicocca) and Sociology of migration (University of Genoa). She also attended, in 2007-2009, a master course in migration and poverty medicine (Caritas, Rome).
Academic career
From 2008 to 2018 she collaborated with the Centre for International and Intercultural Health (CSI) of the Medical and Surgical Sciences Department of the University of Bologna, that she contributed to establish. She is also a founding member of the association CSI-APS, created in 2015.
Teaching activity
She has long term experience in teaching global health and migration and health, both in academic courses (within and outside the health science field) and in courses targeting professionals (organised within the social and health services, social cooperatives, NGOs, etc.). In this area, she is part of the Italian Network for Global Health Education (RIISG). She coordinated the international course “Global Health and Migration: Interdisciplinary Tools to Tackle Health Inequalities”, financed through the Erasmus Lifelong Learning Programme (2011-13).
Research
She participated in several research and action-research projects, mostly within multidisciplinary teams, both in the area of Bologna and abroad. In particular, she participated in research projects financed through the EU Seventh Framework Program (HEPVIC) as well as other project lines dedicated to non-state actors (Equal Opportunities for Health: Action for Development). She had a leading role in the multicentric research “Inequalities and multiple discrimination in access to healthcare”, financed by the EU Fundamental Rights Agency (FRA). From 2014 to 2018, she was co-principal investigator in the international action-research “Civil Society Engagement for Health for All”, financed by the Canadian International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and led by the People's Health Movement (PHM).
Other activities
Since the beginning of Medical School she had several experiences in international health cooperation in LMIC (Sub Saharan Africa, Latin America, Middle East), that later became professional engagements also thanks to her participation in the postgraduate course in Tropical Medicine and International Health at the University of Brescia.
Since 2014 she is consultant for the Belgian NGO Viva Salud, that works in international health cooperation and solidarity, particularly on global health policies, relationships with social movements, networking and capacity building / popular education.
From 2007 to 2016 she was a volunteer doctor in the Sokos clinic, that provides medical assistance to undocumented migrants and people who don't have access to healthcare services, in collaboration with the local health authority of Bologna. In 2009 she contributed to the creation of the Regional network for Migration and Health in the Emilia Romagna region (GrIS-ER), of which she is still an active member. In 2012 she was elected in the board of the Italian Society of Migration Medicine (SIMM).
Within the People's Health Movement (PHM), she has been regional coordinator for Europe from 2012 to 2018, and co-chair of the global steering council (of which she is still part) from 2016 to 2018.
