Meet Our Instructors

Faculty in Residence

Each quarter, one Stanford professor serves as Faculty in Residence in each of the BOSP program locations. These faculty teach classes in their own disciplines, developing courses that incorporate unique features of the local culture and environment or that provide comparative perspectives on a particular topic. View a list of current and future faculty.

Francesca Banchi

Francesca Banchi holds a B.A. in Foreign Languages and Literatures from the University of Florence, an M.A. in Chinese Language and Culture from the University of Venice, and a second Master’s in Teaching Italian as a Second and Foreign Language. Prior to joining the Breyer Center for Overseas Studies in Florence, Banchi lived in China and taught Italian as a foreign language to Shanghai Jiaotong University students. In her Italian language classes, culture, grammar, and vocabulary are always presented through a communicative approach and the use of teaching materials that are designed and customized for every class.

Ugo Biggeri

Ugo Biggeri serves as the European representative for the Global Alliance for Banking on Values, a global network of sustainable banks. He is also the President of Shareholders for Change, a network of European institutional investors promoting active shareholding on Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) issues. A founding member of Banca Etica in Italy, he served as its president until 2019, overseeing a credit portfolio of €1.2 billion. Biggeri holds a PhD in Physics from the University Federico II in Naples, and has specializations in Sustainable Development from the University of Trento and in Business Management from Bocconi University in Milan. He teaches Ethical Finance and Microcredit at the University of Florence, and is deeply committed to social justice and ecological issues, actively promoting initiatives and campaigns with Italian NGOs.

Deborah Bottazzi

Deborah Bottazzi holds a B.A. in Teaching Italian Language and Culture to Foreigners, an M.A. in Textual Skills for Publishing, Teaching and Tourism Promotion, and a second Master’s in Teaching Italian as a Second and Foreign Language. She also holds a DITALS certification, levels I and II, issued by the Università per Stranieri di Siena. She collaborates with the Center for CILS (certificate of Italian as a Second Language) and has worked in private schools teaching English and Italian. Her teaching philosophy rests upon the idea that in the classroom each student, regardless of their level and ability, finds a motivating space where to improve their language and communication skills before bringing them in their everyday life and interaction with the Italians.

Ermelinda M. Campani

Ermelinda M. Campani is the Spogli Family Director of Stanford's Breyer Center for Overseas Studies in Florence. A native of Emilia Romagna (Italy), she earned an M.A. in Italian literature and a Ph.D. with an emphasis in film studies from Brown University. Prior to joining Stanford University in 1993, she taught courses both at Brown and Rhode Island School of Design and served as acting director of the Brown University Program in Bologna. She has been teaching film to Stanford undergraduates since 1993. Her teaching and research focus on film history and criticism, film style and interpretation, film culture, modernism and film, feminist film theory. Her published works include a book on Bernardo Bertolucci, one on cinema and the sacred (translated into French in 2007), and a book on cinema's representations of the human body. She has written articles both on European and US film journals, has contributed entries to the encyclopedia of World Cinema and has lectured widely. Her current research revolves around iconology and the film image.

Riccardo Emilio Chesta

Riccardo Emilio Chesta is assistant professor at the Politecnico di Milano and member of META – Social Sciences and Humanities for Science and Technology. He investigates the social and political dimensions of environmental problems and the intersections between democratic politics and expertise, opening science and technology to the participation of lay people. On these topics he has published the book The Contentious Politics of Expertise. Experts, Activism and Grassroots Environmentalism (Routledge, 2020). Together with Donatella Della Porta and Lorenzo Cini he has published Labour Conflicts in the Digital Age (Bristol University Press). Previously, he studied Sociology (BSc) at the University of Trento, Social Sciences (MSc) at the EHESS and ENS in Paris and obtained a PhD in Social and Political Sciences at the European University Institute in Florence. He has also been Postdoctoral Researcher at the Scuola Normale Superiore, as well as Visiting Researcher at New York University and the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

Jacopo Custodi

Jacopo Custodi is a Research Fellow in Political Science at the Florence branch of the Scuola Normale Superiore, where he works within the Horizon Europe RECLAIM project on media and disinformation, and a Professor of Comparative Political Systems at Georgetown University in Fiesole. He holds a Ph.D. cum laude in Political Science and Sociology from the Scuola Normale Superiore, with a doctoral dissertation on radical left parties in Spain, Portugal and Italy and how they frame national identity in their discourse. He has published numerous academic articles on party politics, nationalism studies and political communication. In 2023, he received the Top Cited Article 2021-2022 award from the academic journal Nations and Nationalism (Wiley). He is the author of the books “Un’idea di Paese. La nazione nel pensiero di sinistra” (Castelvecchi 2023) and “Radical Left Parties and National Identity in Spain, Italy and Portugal: Rejecting or Reclaiming the Nation” (Palgrave 2024).

Veronica De Romanis

Veronica De Romanis studied economics at La Sapienza University in Rome (Bachelor Degree in Economics cum Laude) and Columbia University in New York (PhD Course), where she obtained an MA and MPhil in Economics. She was a Member of the Council of Economic Advisors at the Ministry of Economy and Finance, for over twelve years, focusing on macroeconomics and public finance. She was also in charge of the interaction with Eurostat, the European Commission, OECD and the IMF. She is a current Member of the Advisory Board of the “Giubileo 2025 in Confindustria,” and of the Think Tank of Unindustria. She is also a Member of the International Committee of the Board of WE Women Empower the World and she is in the listing of 100esperte.it. She published several books: “Il Metodo Merkel,” (2009, Marsilio), “Il Caso Germania,” (2013, Marsilio), “L’Austerità fa Crescere” (2017, Marsilio), “Il Pasto Gratis” (2024, Mondadori). She also lectures at the Libera Università degli Studi Sociali Guido Carli (LUISS) in Rome (Department of Political Science, School of Government and MBA Program), and is an advisor to the Minister of Economy and Finance on the Reform of the European Economic Governance.

Dario Donetti

Dario Donetti holds an M.Arch. from the Università degli Studi di Firenze (2008) and a Ph.D. from the Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa (2016) and is currently assistant professor of architectural history at the University of Verona. Previously, he served as an academic assistant at the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz (2013-2019), a research associate at the Italian Academy of Columbia University (2017), and a collegiate assistant professor at the University of Chicago (2019-2022). The primary goal of his research is to understand the interdependence between draftsmanship and architectural production, with a focus on issues of authorship and materiality. Among the results of his studies are the exhibition catalog Giuliano da Sangallo: Disegni degli Uffizi (Giunti: 2017, coauthored with Sabine Frommel and Marzia Faietti) and the monograph Francesco da Sangallo e l’identità dell’architettura toscana (Officina Libraria: 2020). Donetti is also the editor of the volumes Architecture and Dystopia (Actar: 2019) and Building with Paper: The Materiality of Renaissance Architectural Drawings (Brepols: 2021, with Cara Rachele).

Emanuele Ertola

Emanuele Ertola is Research Fellow at the University of Siena, Department of Historical Sciences and Cultural Heritage. His research focuses on Italian colonialism, decolonization, colonial and post-colonial migrations, Fascism. Emanuele holds a Ph.D. in Contemporary History from the University of Florence and a Master’s degree from “La Sapienza” University in Rome. He has authored several significant publications, including “Il colonialismo degli italiani. Storia di un’ideologia” (2022) and “In terra d’Africa. Gli italiani che colonizzarono l’impero” (2017).

Mattia Guidi

Mattia Guidi is an Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Siena, where he coordinates the Ph.D. programme in Social Sciences and Humanities. He holds a Ph.D. in Political and Social Sciences from the European University Institute. His research interests include the study of global and comparative political economy, independent regulatory agencies, macro-economic governance of the European Union, and EU competition policy. He has taught courses in European Public Policies, International Public Policies, Public Policy and Regulation in the EU, Quantitative Methods for Social Sciences, Political Communication, and Global Political Economy. He has published articles in many international journals and three monographs: Competition Policy Enforcement in EU Member States (2016, Palgrave MacMillan); The Law and Politics of Global Competition (2022, Oxford University Press; co-authored with Chris Townley and Mariana Tavares); Politiche dell’economia globale (2024, Mondadori Università; co-authored with Arlo Poletti).

Ali Aydin Karamustafa

Originally from St. Louis, Missouri, Ali Aydin Karamustafa is a historian of the Ottoman and Safavid worlds, and his research focuses on oral and written traditions concerning origins, conquest, legitimacy, and rebellion which were produced and circulated by political communities from the fourteenth to the eighteenth centuries across Eurasia. He received his PhD from Stanford in 2020 and currently works and resides in Bologna, Italy.

Tommaso Mozzati

Tommaso Mozzati is Associate Professor in the Dipartimento di Lettere at the University of Perugia. He is a specialist of fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Italian sculpture and has published widely on that and related topics, including Early Modern visual culture and the art market; the representation of the nude in Italy from Brunelleschi to Giambologna and the European trade of marbles during the Cinquecento, from Carrara, to Genova, to France, Spain and England. He is also interested in the use of Renaissance art along XIX and XX centuries, including the critical reception of figures such as Perugino, Michelangelo, Cellini. He has curated several exhibitions, including I grandi bronzi del Battistero. Rustici e Leonardo, at the Museo nazionale del Bargello (2010-11), Norma e capriccio. Spagnoli in Italia agli esordi della 'maniera moderna' at the Galleria degli Uffizi in Florence (2013), Spagna e Italia in dialogo nell'Europa del Cinquecento at the Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe of the Uffizi (2018), and Un mare tutto fresco di colore. Sandro Penna e le arti figurative at the Galleria Nazionale dell’Umbria (2023). Previously he was a fellow of the Italian Academy – Columbia University, Villa I Tatti The Harvard Center for Italian Renaissance Studies, the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Casa de Velázquez in Madrid.

Emily Rose Palm

Emily Palm holds a Ph.D in Biology from the University of Washington and she is currently a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Biotechnology and Biosciences at the University of Milano-Bicocca (UNIMIB). She is currently the instructor of Plant Physiology and is involved in several research projects focused on the role of functional leaf and root traits to improving soil and air quality through phytoremediation and sustainable agriculture using salt-adapted edible plant species. She has taught Plant Physiology both at the University of Teramo (Italy) and at the University of Washington (Seattle), and courses in Sustainable Agriculture and The Science of Italian Food for the study abroad program Umbra Institute in Perugia (Italy). Emily is convinced that understanding the complexity of the natural world requires us to use all our senses. Though technology has expanded our capacity to measure plant responses to their environment, we are at risk of losing our skills of observation and the simple joy of being awestruck by nature. She encourages her students to take the time to make observations and reflect as these are key components of the scientific method.

Silvio Pons

Silvio Pons is Full Professor of Contemporary History at the Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa. He is President of the Gramsci Foundation, Rome. He has been a visiting scholar to several institutions, particulary Columbia University, the European University Institute, the Hoover Institution, the Wilson Center, the Russian Academy of Sciences. His main research interests are focused on the international history of the 20th century, on Soviet and world communism, on the Cold War and its aftermath. He is the author of The Global Revolution. A History of International Communism (Oxford University Press 2014) and the General Editor of the Cambridge History of Communism (Cambridge University Press 2017). His most recent book is The Rise and Fall of the Italian Communist Party. A Transnational History (Stanford University Press 2024).