Paola Villano is Full Professor of Social Psychology at the Department of Education Studies at the University of Bologna, where she began her academic career as a researcher in 2000. She holds a degree in Pedagogy with honors and a PhD in Psychology. Following her doctoral studies, she was awarded a two-year postdoctoral fellowship and served as Associate Professor from 2005 to 2020. She has held national qualification for Full Professorship since 2018 (sector 11/E3).
She currently serves as the Rector’s Delegate for Workplace Well-being, a role through which she has promoted initiatives such as the psychological support service “Avrò cura di me” and contributed to the university’s working group on work-related stress. She is also a member of the Quality Assurance Committee for the Master’s Degree in Educational Planning and Management in Social Disadvantage.
Over the years, she has held numerous institutional roles, including chairing academic and research committees, serving as departmental delegate for Third Mission and Research, and participating in the Department’s Executive Board. She has coordinated degree programs and evaluated research grants.
Scientifically, she is Deputy Director of the CEFEO Research Center and a member of several scientific committees, including CESAF and MODI. She is co-founder of the Center for Studies on Gender and Education (CSGE) and serves as editorial consultant for the psychology division of Carocci Publishing.
Throughout her career, Paola Villano has received several academic awards, including a scholarship from Brown University (USA) in 2000, funding from the University of Bologna’s Young Researchers Program in 1998, and a fellowship for advanced training at the University of Amsterdam in 1997 under the supervision of Prof. Teun A. van Dijk. In 1992, she received the “G.F. Minguzzi” Prize for a paper on social stereotypes. More recently, in 2017, she was awarded funding for international mobility under Unibo’s cooperation agreements.
She is actively involved in editorial and peer-review activities for both Italian and international journals, including Giornale Italiano di Psicologia, Psicologia Sociale, Psychological Reports, Group Processes and Intergroup Relations, and Social Psychology and Education. In 2017, she also served as a reviewer for the Poland National Science Centre.
She has held visiting professor positions at several international universities, including West Visayas State University (Philippines), Universidade Federal do Espírito Santo (Brazil), Universitat Pompeu Fabra (Spain), Brown University, Harvard, and Tufts University (USA). Her research collaborations include projects with Columbia University, the University of Surrey (UK), and an international research group on Roma communities involving Italian and Brazilian institutions. Since 1994, she has maintained a long-standing collaboration with Prof. Teun van Dijk on discourse and prejudice studies.
Paola Villano has actively contributed to numerous national and international research projects, with a consistent focus on inclusion, social participation, and the prevention of marginalization. Among her recent PRIN projects, she is part of the Unibo research unit for INSPIRE (2021–2024), which explores inclusive strategies in workplace settings. She has also worked on projects addressing gender and education, migration, environmental risk perception, and civic engagement.
Internationally, she is involved in the Horizon project SINCRONY (from 2024), which focuses on intersectional inclusion of youth in deliberative processes, and in the Trait Emotional Intelligence project in collaboration with University College London. She participated in the Erasmus+ FORTH program for teacher training in the Philippines and in the European project PIDOP (7th Framework Programme) on democratic participation among youth and minorities. She has also collaborated on research in Kosovo with Save the Children and with universities across Europe and Latin America.
From the outset of her career, she has contributed to publicly and institutionally funded research, helping to build interdisciplinary and international research networks. Her approach combines qualitative and quantitative methodologies, with a particular focus on psychosocial processes related to exclusion, prejudice, and active citizenship.
