My bio

I hold a PhD in social and political sciences, awarded in 1998 by the European University Institute (EUI). During my doctoral studies, I received an EUI scholarship that enabled me to conduct research at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies (CMES), University of California, Berkeley. Prior to this, I studied political science at the Institut d’Etudes Politiques in Aix-en-Provence where I specialized in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region and studied Arabic.

Following the completion of my PhD, I lived in Jordan, Morocco and Tunisia where I worked for public bodies and UN institutions. I am currently 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) where I was “scientifically born” in 1993. In 2020, while on secondment from the College of Europe, I held the Chair in Migration Studies at the Institute for Advanced Studies IMéRA, Aix-Marseille University. Prior to this, I was a 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 in collaboration with EU and non-EU partner institutions (in North and sub-Saharan Africa, the Mediterranean and the Caucasus).

My research and publications 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 readmission cooperation.

Finally, I am a member of the Open Council of Europe Academic Networks (OCEAN) Programme which is run by the Department for the implementation of human rights, justice and legal co-operation standards at the Council of Europe. I am also a member of the scientific committee of the Laboratory of Critical Studies on Forced Migration based at the University of Milan (Italy) and a co-coordinator of the Séminaire sur l’étude des politiques migratoires africaines (POMAF).