A pressing challenge in synthetic chemistry is developing sustainable methods to convert abundant feedstocks into valuable chiral products. The DESY-HAT project addresses this by pioneering new catalytic techniques, powered by visible light, to achieve stereoselective functionalization of carbon–hydrogen (C–H) bonds, the most ubiquitous moiety in organic molecules. Specifically, the project aims to access complex chiral molecules directly from readily available C–H substrates, including natural products, through enantioselective C–H functionalization via Hydrogen Atom Transfer (HAT) processes. The DESY-HAT project focuses on using HAT to selectively target C(sp³)–H bonds in symmetrical and meso substrates. The resulting desymmetrization processes will provide direct access to highly enantioenriched chiral products. This innovative approach, combining HAT with enantioselective organocatalysis, is a largely unexplored frontier in the field. The project will develop HAT desymmetrization strategies and apply them for enantioselective C(sp³)–C(sp³) and C(sp³)–heteroatom bond formation. The project benefits from the Melchiorre group’s expertise in radical photochemistry and organocatalysis and will receive industrial guidance from Bayer AG Pharmaceuticals to identify suitable C–H substrates and assist with scaling up processes to practical applications. Through this interdisciplinary research, DESY-HAT will generate chiral compounds with biologically relevant frameworks, advancing the field of asymmetric synthesis while providing me with crucial skills for the next stage of my career.

InBoRC wants to design a more plural and complex image of the Roman city to integrate and go beyond the classical vision based on the élite and characterised by a top-down approach. As such, it focuses on the social, economic and political impact of middling groups in the city from the Late Republic to the 3rd c. AD. In order to do that the research is based on the study of the intermediate bodies of the cities – social aggregational cores intermediate between the family and the city – which are our best indicator of the civic action of this stratum of population. The project will mainly focus on the epigraphical sources coming from the cities of Roman Italy. However, InBoRC is not geographically strictly limited, but it is nourished by punctual parallels coming from the epigraphical documentation of Roman provinces. The main goals of this research are: i) analyse the sociability of these groups, and ii) study their agency in the civic life. The principal outcome of the project will be a monograph built on a multidisciplinary approach involving epigraphy, Roman history, sociology, economic and urban history, and archaeology. As a support of the monograph, I will provide digital open data of the inscriptions analysed in the text. Ancient texts will be encoded and enriched with metadata (city, people, institutions, etc.) using EpiDoc XML language in order to integrate new open linked data within existing European e-infrastructures (eg. Trismegistos, EDH, EDR). These goals will be achieved by a unique combination of “hands-on” research training, courses and workshops on scientific and complementary so-called “soft” skills facilitated by Brown University, ANHIMA Research Center, and the University of Bologna. The success of this project will allow me to assume fixed term tenure track position and eventually to obtain the position of Associate Professor at UNIBO.

SHIFT-GEN investigates how narratives of climate change can affect young generations, proposing the first extensive study of young adult climate fiction (YA cli-fi) in English (2000-2023; interest age: 13-19 years). Emerging studies reveal that the chronic fear of environmental catastrophe is particularly affecting young people’s daily life. Feelings of climate anxiety and ecogrief are amplified by a sense of intergenerational injustice, with the so-called climate generation often portrayed as an innocent victim that adults are failing to protect. By adopting an ecocritical perspective, my research will examine whether YA cli-fi portrays young adults as assertive leaders and protagonists, shaping their own future. Moreover, combining recent developments in ecocriticism - namely econarratology, affective ecocriticism, and empirical ecocriticism - this project will investigate whether YA cli-fi is able to prompt the development of ecological citizenship, communicate fears and hopes about the future, and inspire creative thinking and long-term action. Given its scope and purpose, the proposed research is a timely contribution to current ecological debates and can offer significant insights on the connection between the health of people, animals, and ecosystems, engaging in a One Health approach. This three-year action will be undertaken under the supervision of Prof. R. Baccolini (UNIBO) and Prof. E. James (UIDAHO), and includes a secondment supervised by Prof. M. Caracciolo (UGENT). It will comprise a transversal training and the acquisition of transferable skills, as well as a targeted program of dissemination and communication activities. The project will also undertake citizen science research engaging with university students of the Emilia-Romagna region to explore the impact of YA cli-fi on young readers’ climate change emotions, thus employing the theoretical categories of the project to reflect on local communities and fragile landscapes.

Gender and racial discrimination are critical and pervasive problems in academic institutions world-wide. Apart from being underrepresented in some fields – such as STEM and Philosophy — gender and racial minorities are disproportionately vulnerable to sexual and racial harassment in Higher Education. In 2021, a report on universities in the UK determined that “women were nearly two-and-a-half times as likely to experience sexual violence as men, while staff on insecure contracts, those with disabilities, LGBTQ+, or black, Asian or minority ethnic were also at greater risk”. Academic institutions have sometimes sought to remedy to these exclusions by implementing diversity policies aimed at increasing the number of underrepresented groups among staff and students. However, and more problematically, even when diversity policies and measures to fight against sexual and other forms of harassment are in place, academic institutions tend to be more concerned with protecting the institution from reputational damage than with the safety and well-being of the victims. Reports that document the extent of these harms in universities point out that a change of culture is needed. If we do not address the cultural environment that feeds these violent forms of exclusion, diversity and anti-harassment policies will be insufficient. However, as long as we do not understand what makes this culture so persistent, we will lack the appropriate concepts and tools to change it. My contention is that, while sexual and racial harassment are among the most harmful and violent manifestations of oppression, they are rooted in an ecosystem of cognitive and emotional habits that sediment in exclusionary practices against minorities. My research project will be especially concerned with addressing these emotional conditions, by asking how oppressed and oppressors need to engage with their emotions in order to resist against oppression and build more cooperative ways of living together.