Michele Sollai

I am a postdoctoral researcher of the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF), and currently a visiting scholar at the Centre d'Histoire de Sciences Po, Paris. Prior to moving to Paris, I was a visiting scholar at the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society, Munich. 

My research is located at the intersection of environmental history, science & technology studies, and the history of development and modernization. 

I obtained my PhD in 2021 from the Geneva Graduate Institute (GGI), with a thesis on the history of agrarian development in Ethiopia from the Italian fascist occupation to early post-war international aid. 

My current project focuses on the history of fascist agrarian science and technology, particularly on the creation and dissemination of "elite" wheat cultivars in Italy  and globally during and after the interwar years.

I am also planning a new project on "droughtscapes", examining the role of trans-imperial scientific networks and plant transfers in the acceleration of colonization and capitalist frontier expansion into semiarid and arid lands since the late 19th century.