My bio

I hold a PhD in social and political sciences, awarded in 1998, by the European University Institute. Previously, I studied political science at the Institut d’Etudes Politiques in Aix-en-Provence where I specialized on the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region while learning Arabic.

I have lived and worked in Jordan, Morocco and Tunisia. Currently, I am teaching migration governance and international cooperation at the College of Europe (Natolin Campus). I am also a research associate at the Tunis-based Research Institute on the Contemporary Maghreb (IRMC). From February to July 2020, I directed the Chair in Migration Studies at the Institute for Advanced Studies IMéRA, Aix-Marseille University. Prior to this, I was part-time professor at the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies (European University Institute, Florence) where I supervised and managed interdisciplinary research projects on migration policies and developed field surveys mobilizing EU and non-EU partner institutions (in North and sub-Saharan Africa, the Mediterranean and the Caucasus).

My publications and major interests focus on the expansion of international regulatory systems and bilateral/regional patterns of cooperation, and on the diffusion and internalization of norms and practices pertaining to the “governance” of international migration, especially with reference to MENA and African countries.

Finally, I am a member of the scientific committee of the Laboratory of Critical Studies on Forced Migration based at the University of Milan (Italy), a co-coordinator of the Séminaire sur l’étude des politiques migratoires africaines (POMAF) and an external member of the International Justice and Human Rights Centre (IJHR, Edge Hill University, UK).