Alessia Melcangi is Tenure Track Assistant Professor at the Department of Social Sciences and Economics (DiSSE) of La Sapienza University of Rome and where she teaches History of North Africa and the Middle East and of Globalization and International Relations at the Department of Social Sciences and Economics of La Sapienza University of Rome.

In 2008 Alessia Melcangi graduated in Contemporary History at the University of Catania. She holds a PhD in Political Thought and Institutions in the Mediterranean Societies at the University of Catania in 2011, and carried out different fieldworks and archival researches in France, Great Britain, Egypt and Jordan. In 2008, she has been visiting research fellow at the Centre d’Études et de Documentation Économiques, Juridiques et Sociales (CEDEJ) and at the Dominican Institute for Oriental Studies (IDEO) in Cairo.

From 2013 to 2014, she has been research fellow of History and Institutions of Africa at the Department of Political and Social Science, University of Catania, and from 2017 to 2018 at the Department of Social Sciences and Economics (DiSSE), La Sapienza University of Rome. She coordinated the Research Projects of National Relevance (PRIN) 2010-2011 “Nation/States and minorities in Mediterranean Africa” funded by the Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research.

From 2016 she collaborates with the Centre of Research on the Southern System and the Wider Mediterranean (CRiSSMA – Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, Milan) and she is faculty member of the Master in Migration and Development, Department of Social Sciences and Economics (DiSSE), La Sapienza University of Rome, of the Master in Middle Eastern Studies – MIMES, School of Economics and International Relations (ASERI), Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, Milan and member of the Steering Committee of ReaCT – Osservatorio sul Radicalismo e il Contrasto al Terrorismo (Observatory on Radicalism and Counter-terrorism).

Her researches are mainly focused on the Contemporary history of North Africa and Middle East; geopolitics and international relations in the Euro-Mediterranean area; ethno-religious minorities (in particular the Copts and the Berbers); identity dynamics and dynamics of polarization in the contemporary Middle East; political and social issues in contemporary Egypt and Libya. Regarding these issues she has published several monographs, peer review articles in Italian or international Journals, papers in edited works and policy papers.

She has participated in the activities of the Centre of Research on the Southern System and the Wider Mediterranean (CRiSSMA) about the contemporary Libyan political, economic and security dynamics; in the field of research in interreligious dialogue she has collaborated on a project on Freedom and Human Rights coordinated by CRiSSMA and the Royal Institute for Inter-Faith Studies (RIIFS) of Amman; in the field of defense and security she’s participating to the research activities of ReaCT – Osservatorio sul Radicalismo e il Contrasto al Terrorismo (Observatory on Radicalism and Counter-terrorism).