Serenella Sferza

Serenella Sferza co-directs the MIT-Italy Program, a program of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology aimed at strengthening collaborations and exchanges of ideas and brains between MIT and Italy. A Milanese, she graduated in Political Science from Statale di Milano and went to MIT as a Fulbright Fellow where she obtained a PhD in Political Science. After her doctorate, Sferza taught comparative politics at various universities in the USA and Europe before returning to MIT where, in addition to her work with the MIT-Italy Program, she teaches Political Economy and serves as an advisor to an interdisciplinary program of applied international studies. Sferza is also an affiliate of the Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies at Harvard, where she co-directs a group on reform and issues in higher education in Europe.

During her career as a political scientist, Sferza has mainly focused on comparative politics and the training and reform of political parties, with an emphasis on the French case. As head of the MIT-Italy Program, she has mainly dealt with the relationship between technology and society and intercultural communication. Along with the other 9 programs that make up the MISTI International Science and Technology Initiatives at MIT, MIT-Italy is one of the main promoters of internationalization of education at MIT. In recent years, Sferza has launched numerous collaborations between MIT and various representatives of Italian excellence in the academic research sector - such as the Polytechnic of Milan and the Polytechnic of Turin - but also in business (Ferrari and ENEL), territorial management (Trentino Development) and innovation (Innovation Agency). A recent pilot project involves the introduction of the MIT's experimental and "hands on" approach to teaching mathematics and physics in some Italian high schools by sending teams of MIT students with significant experience in these subjects to those high schools.