ACADEMIC POSITIONS & GRANTS
2025-2026
SENIOR FELLOW
Merian Centre for Advanced Studies in the Maghreb, University of Tunis
Cultural Practices and their Linguistic Representation: Documenting Food and Music in Tunisian and Libyan Amazigh Communities
2024-2025
POSTDOCTORAL RESEARCHER
University of Naples, "L'Orientale', Dipartimento Asia, Africa e Mediterraneo
Complessità linguistica: Prospettive strutturali per lo studio delle complessità locali nelle lingue africane (P.I. Prof. Gian Claudio Batic)
10-12.2024
SENIOR FELLOW
University of Cologne
Prominence in Language, project A03 "Prosodic prominence in cross-linguistic perspective"
During my time in Cologne as Senior Fellow, my aim is to analyse the interaction between the acoustic cues of stress and the prosodic features that (selected) Berber languages use to mark other types of prominence (such as those marking the beginning or end of the intonation unit; focus; topic, etc...). I also seek to investigate whether the speaker and listener's perception of stress placement aligns with these acoustic cues. (P.I. Prof. Nikolaus Himmelmann)
Since 2022
CONSULTANT
Arab German Young Academy
Access to Waxes – Arab Collections of the Berlin Phonogramm-Archiv
In the framework of the AGYA project "Global Berlin in the 21st Century" - "From phonograph to web 3.0. Berlin's historical sound recordings from the Arab regions", since November 2022 I have been collaborating with the P.I. Prof. Matthias Pasdzierny on the collection of the German musicologist Brigitte Schiffer and the recordings she made in Siwa in 1932-1933. The publication of a co-edited volume is planned.
2021-2023
HUMBOLDT RESEARCH FELLOWSHIP FOR EXPERIENCED RESEARCHERS
Universität Hamburg, Abteilung für Afrikanistik und Äthiopistik
The fellowship at the University of Hamburg (hosted by Prof. Roland Kießling) was spent for 1) the compilation of the first comprehensive grammar of Siwi Berber, a language spoken in the Siwa Oasis in Egypt and 2) the annotation of texts to be uploaded online
10.2019-02.2020
FULBRIGHT RESEARCH SCHOLAR
University of Colorado, Boulder
Writing a grammar of lesser described languages: Methodology and Theory Applied to Siwi (Egypt, Berber)
The project at the University of Colorado, Boulder (hosted by prof. Zygmunt Frajzyngier) consisted in placing my previous research in a broader perspective, in order to acquire the tools to establish the methodology and technique needed to write a reference grammar (following the ‘Systems Interaction’ approach) on the Siwi language (Berber) and, more generally, on minority languages.
2016-2020
POSTDOCTORAL RESEARCHER
University of Naples, "L'Orientale', Dipartimento Asia, Africa e Mediterraneo
I spent my four postdoctoral years working on both Siwi and Nafusi Berber, participating at the activities of the Berber language and literature chair (Prof. Anna Maria Di Tolla) through conferences, seminars and teaching activities.
2012-2013
ENDANGERED LANGUAGES DOCUMENTATION PROGRAMME (ELDP-SOAS)
Small Grant (SG0115) Linguistic Documentation of the variety of Berber spoken in the Siwa Oasis (Egypt)
The goal of the project was the documentation of the Siwi language (Berber language family, Afroasiatic phylum), a variety of Berber spoken in the Siwa oasis (Egypt), through the collection of data to be archived on ELAR.
14.01.2015
PhD
PhD in Linguistics at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes (Paris) and LLACAN/CNRS
Supervised by Prof. Amina Mettouchi. Title: Le berbère de Siwa: documentation, syntaxe et sémantique.