About me
I am an anthropologist interested in how people, institutions, and technologies come together around complex societal challenges. Across fields as diverse as migration, healthcare, and emerging biotechnologies, I study how collaborations are built, how knowledge travels between worlds, and how different forms of expertise can be brought into productive conversation.
What I do
I study collaboration across worlds.
Whether in healthcare teams, migration governance, humanitarian settings, or biotechnology research, I am interested in what happens when people with different forms of expertise come together around shared problems. How do they define challenges? Whose knowledge counts? How are decisions made? And what makes collaboration possible across institutional, disciplinary, and cultural boundaries?
Ethnography is my primary way of answering these questions. Through close engagement with people’s everyday practices, I investigate the relationships, negotiations, and forms of knowledge that shape collective action. I also work to translate ethnographic insights into forms that are meaningful for professionals in clinical, scientific, technical, and policy environments, helping illuminate dimensions of collaboration that often remain hidden from view.
Whether in healthcare teams, migration governance, humanitarian settings, or biotechnology research, I am interested in what happens when people with different forms of expertise come together around shared problems. How do they define challenges? Whose knowledge counts? How are decisions made? And what makes collaboration possible across institutional, disciplinary, and cultural boundaries?
Ethnography is my primary way of answering these questions. Through close engagement with people’s everyday practices, I investigate the relationships, negotiations, and forms of knowledge that shape collective action. I also work to translate ethnographic insights into forms that are meaningful for professionals in clinical, scientific, technical, and policy environments, helping illuminate dimensions of collaboration that often remain hidden from view.
Research areas
My research spans four interconnected areas:
- Health, Care & Biotechnologies.
I explore interdisciplinary collaboration, care practices, and emerging biomedical innovations. - Migration, Humanitarianism & Governance
I examine how mobility is governed and how humanitarian responses are enacted and experienced. - Transnational Mobilities & Identities
I investigate belonging, return, and social change across borders. - Cross-Sector & Interdisciplinary Collaboration
I study how knowledge travels between academia, policy, healthcare, and civil society.
Professional journey
Originally British-Italian by birth and later a naturalized Senegalese citizen, I have lived and worked across Europe, Africa, and Asia. These experiences have shaped my long-term interest in how people navigate difference, build relationships, and work across boundaries.
I have held academic positions in Italy, Senegal, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands, and before entering academia I worked in international development across Sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia, primarily in healthcare project management. Alongside my academic work, I have collaborated with universities, hospitals, NGOs, government institutions, international organisations, and interdisciplinary research consortia.
I have held academic positions in Italy, Senegal, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands, and before entering academia I worked in international development across Sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia, primarily in healthcare project management. Alongside my academic work, I have collaborated with universities, hospitals, NGOs, government institutions, international organisations, and interdisciplinary research consortia.
Beyond work
Outside academia, I enjoy meeting people from different walks of life, swimming, cycling, listening to live music, and exploring the world through photography and social media. I am also a mother of two.