About

I’m a filmmaker, professor, and graduate program director in the Department of English at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. I am also Affiliate Faculty in the Departments of Africana Studies and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies.

My research and artistic practice unfold across three main strands. The first explores how migrants, colonized peoples, and their descendants have represented themselves. This often involves direct collaboration with migrant writers and artists to develop alternative narratives and counter-histories.

The second examines how these groups have been depicted in literature, cinema, television, and popular culture. My interest in the science fiction genre—especially its engagement with different kinds of “aliens”—has led me to co-author two books on the subject.

The third strand investigates the memory and legacy of historical events, focusing on colonialism and its enduring role in shaping institutionalized systems of oppression. I have also worked on a public history project and studied terrorism, analyzing how photographs can bear and transmit the memory of acts of violence, shaping collective understanding over time.

My research projects were supported by grants from the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, the Italian Council, the Italian Prime Minister's Office, the Comunità Bresciana Foundation, the Long Island Grant for the Arts, and research grants from the University of Warwick and Stony Brook University.

I have had the privilege of being invited to present my work at universities, schools, and research centers across Europe, North America, and Australia. Beyond academia, my projects have been showcased in cinemas, theatres, museums, bookstores, and cultural centers, as well as featured at international film festivals and literature festivals. A central thread throughout my work is a commitment to extending academic research beyond the university through filmmaking and active community engagement.

I teach courses in Film Studies, Creative Writing, Migration Studies, Translation Theory, Critical Theory, Science Fiction Studies, and Postcolonial Literature. In 2025, I was honored with the Dean's Award for Excellence in Graduate Teaching by a Faculty Member. I have advised Ph.D. students, including Lindsey Pelucacci, and served on dissertation committees for others, such as Jinyoung Anna Jin.

I earned my BA from the University of Bologna (2005), my MA from the University of Trento (2008), and my PhD from the University of Warwick (2013). I have also studied at the University of Leicester (2002) and the University of Kassel (2005). In 2005, I undertook a three-month overland journey from Germany to Kazakhstan, then across China and into Japan—a trip that proved just as important in shaping who I am as my formal studies. I was a Visiting Scholar at the University of Rome “La Sapienza” in 2021, a Faculty Fellow at the Humanities Institute at Stony Brook University in 2026, and have been an Associate Member of the Centre for the Study of Contemporary Women’s Writing at the School of Advanced Study, University of London, since 2014.