Kent State Florence Staff

Filippo Caprioglio born on March 3, 1971, he graduated in architecture from the Iuav School of Architecture of Venice and then obtained the M-Arch II from Syracuse University School of Architecture, Syracuse, N.Y. Since 2001, his academic career has seen him as a professor of architectural studio class both at Syracuse University and then at University of Maryland, College Park, where he was awarded as Kea Distinguished Professor in 2008. He was also Visiting Professor of Practice at Drury University in 2013 and since 2009 has been on the faculty of the School of Architecture at Kent State University where he still teaches. He was invited as Visiting Professor by prof. Wang Shu, recipient of the Pritzker Prize, at the China Academy of Art in Hangzhou, China in 2016 to teach an intensive workshop.

He designs with his firm Caprioglio Architects www.caprioglio.com in Italy and abroad, undertaking projects of different scales and typologies. In recent years his professional career has mainly focused on the construction of new residential and commercial buildings.

He oversaw the design, transformation, furnishings and installations of private homes, apartments, as well as retail concepts, new offices and spaces for contemporary art, as well as urban furnishing interventions, in Italy and in the United States.

Alongside his activity as an architect, he also has a passion and research for industrial design which has led him to design lamps, furniture and everyday objects for Italian and foreign companies. In 2011 he won the prestigious "Good Design Award of the Chicago Athenaeum" for the IXI lamp designed for Leucos and in recent years he was awarded of important prizes and recognitions for his single-family homes projects in Europe, the United States and China.

In particular, the A Design Award in 2017-2018-2021 and 2022, The BigSEE Architectural Award 2021, The Luxury Lifestyle Award 2021 for the most beautiful luxury house in Italy as well as the nomination for the Italian Architect of the Year 2021 for the Spazio Berlendis project in Venice. In June 2022 he won, with the same project, the first international prize in New York for the restoration of public spaces in Italy. In 2023 he received a special mention from the jury of the In/Arch Award for his house in Cittadella (Padua).

The most significant projects have been published in magazines and books such as the New York Times, l'Arca, Dwell, Domus, IoArch, The Plan, among others.

Two the monographic books that outline his career:

“Thinking 360 - Filippo Caprioglio Architecture & Design” published by Mazzanti Libri in 2018 and “Filippo Caprioglio- Sette Case Sette Storie” published by Linea Edizioni in 2023. 

Marco Brizzi is architecture critic and curator. He graduated from the Università degli Studi di Firenze, the city where he lives, and holds a PhD in Architecture. 

He teaches Architectural Design to CalPoly San Luis Obispo and Pomona students in Florence (since 2000), Video, Media, and Architecture and Theories of Architecture at Kent State University Florence (since 2009). He has taught, among others, at Università La Sapienza in Rome, at Università degli Studi di Firenze, at Università degli Studi di Ferrara, at the Università degli Studi della Repubblica di San Marino, at NABA (Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti) in Milan and at IN/ARCH Istituto Nazionale di Architettura in Rome.  

He is a founder of Image www.imageforculture.com, a company dedicated to promoting a better understanding of media issues in architecture since 2000. He established and directed Beyond Media, an architecture festival that took place in Florence from 1997 to 2009 and focused on videos made by architects in the context of a broader debate on architecture and media relations. He has been for 16 years director of arch’it www.architettura.it, online architectural magazine founded in 1995: the first and one of the most widely read Italian digital magazines on architecture. Among his other editorial activities, Marco has been editor in chief of FFF www.firenzefastforward.it, magazine devoted to design visions for the city of Florence. In 2015, his intention to share a wide collection of architecture videos and his personal experience on this specific kind of documents brought him to create the archive/magazine The Architecture Player www.architectureplayer.com. He co-directs The Architecture Curator www.thearchitecturecurator.com, supporting the creative development of emerging and established architecture practices. 

Marco Brizzi received prestigious acknowledgements. He has been appointed as a juror in competition and prize juries, in Italy and abroad. He is advisor for the Mies van der Rohe Award. As director of arch’it he was finalist for the Golden Medal to architectural criticism awarded by the Triennale di Milano.  

Federico Grazzini moved to London in 1998 after graduating in Architecture at the University of Florence, starting out as a 3D artist and visualisation expert. He joined Alsop Architects in 1999, getting involved with a wide range of projects, from architecture, product and furniture design to masterplanning, and also in a number of international competitions, amongst which the shortlisted design for the new Italian Space Agency headquarters in Rome and the winning entry for the masterplan of Rotterdam Centraal in the Netherlands.

From 2002 he worked as project and site architect of the installations for the 2nd Valencia contemporary Art Biennale under the direct supervision of Will Alsop and with the artist Bruce McLean, spending four months on site in Valencia, Spain, supervising the construction of 800 sqm of art installations and exhibitions.

In 2003 he helped to develop the Alsop range of products and furniture initiated with the Bienal, most notably for Alessi on the Tea and Coffee Towers project in the same year. He is still designing tableware and accessories for Alessi.

Subsequently he was employed at Marks Barfield Architects in London, for which I have worked on, amongst other projects, a feasibility stage of a Crossrail station and the Woking Art and Heritage Galleries project, detail design Stages E and F.

Moving back to Florence he began collaborating with the multi-disciplinary office Terrastudio, following a series of small scale interior projects and completion structures for a touristic port in Tuscany, also collaborating with the artist Maurizio Nannucci with the production of elaborates for his urban-scale installations.

For a brief period Federico collaborated with Fuksas MArch in Rome as a director of competitions and international projects and, after moving to Bologna, with Mario Cucinella Architects as team leader on the project for the new hq of ISTAT (Italian Statistics Agency) and on the detailed design of the facades of the new Four Hospitals in Tuscany (Prato, Pistoia, Apuane, Lucca). 

Federico sees his involvement with teaching as a complement to his work, something which is creatively inspiring and morally rewarding, helping him to push the envelope of professional practice. He began in 1997/98 after his degree, when he tutored at the Università degli Studi in Florence assisting Prof. Remo Buti, who also supervised his graduation thesis, in his course of Interior Architecture, following the work of 18 groups of 5th year students to completion.

In 2004-5, during his employment at Marks Barfield Architects in London, he was co-tutoring and lecturing Interior Architecture in a Degree Studio at the School of Architecture and Design, Brighton University. The subject of the studio was an investigation on the concept of inhabitable borders and the nature and function of physical barriers in the contemporary city. In 2005 he was invited as a guest at final critiques at a Diploma course at the Bartlett School of Architecture in London.

Federico has been teaching and coordinating the Interior Design Studio at KSU Florence since 2006. The Studio deals with issues of contemporary interior design within historical contexts. For the same program he also directs the course named Study Tours, which involves a series of field trips to various Italian art cities and international events in Italy, such as the Salone del Mobile in Milan.

From 2008 to 2020 he also ran several English language courses in the private school  for international students Lorenzo De’Medici in Florence: Product Design, Design Materials, Modern History of Interior Design and Architecture and Contemporary Architecture.

All the courses are accredited by Marist College of Poughkeepsie (NY) and part of either a BA or PSC in Interior Design.

From 2010 to 2021 he has been directing the two propaedeutic first year courses of Metodologia Progettuale and Design I, part of the three-year course in Interior Design offered by IED Firenze (Istituto Europeo di Design). 

In the academic year 2014-15 Federico worked as adjunct professor at the University of Bologna participating in the Product Design Studio for second year students.

From September 2012 he teaches Furniture Design to international bachelor and master students at the Florence Institute of Design International (FIDI). Since 2016-17 he also supervised Interior Design thesis projects at FIDI in a course denominated Design Research/Design Systems, validated by the University of Chester (UK). 

Paola Giaconia is a licensed architect and experienced university educator.  

She graduated with honors, earning a diploma in Architecture from the Politecnico di Milano in 1996. As a Fulbright Scholarship recipient, she obtained her Master’s Degree from the Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc) in Los Angeles in 1999. 

After work experiences at Morphosis in the USA and Massimiliano Fuksas in Italy, she established her own practice in Italy. Her project for the new civic center in Ranica garnered international attention through various global publications and received numerous awards. Shortlisted for the Gold Medal for Italian Architecture in 2012 by the Milan Triennale, the building had previously won the First Prize for Best Public Building from the Institute of Architects in Bergamo, Italy, in 2011, in a jury chaired by Aurelio Galfetti. 

Trained as an architect, Paola deliberately ventured beyond the conventional practice of architecture, engaging in academic, editorial, and curatorial pursuits.  

Her publications and articles in esteemed international magazines, including "Abitare" (Italy), "Architektur + Technik" (Switzerland), “de Architect” (Netherlands) and "Domus" (Italy), underscore her commitment to diverse pursuits. She has been a guest lecturer at various universities and cultural institutions worldwide, including the Politecnico di Milano, the MAXXI Museum in Rome, Dankook University in South Korean and Universidad CEU San Pablo in Madrid, Spain. As part of the board of the Beyond Media festival, she curated the SPOT ON SCHOOLS exhibition whose 3 editions (2003, 2005 and 2009) saw the participation of some among the most distinguished schools of architecture in the world (from SCI-Arc to Columbia University, from ETH to RMIT, from University of Hong Kong to the Architectural Association) that investigate the ways digital media have informed the conception and production of architecture. Paola's projects have been published internationally in “Metropolis” (USA), “AZURE” (Canada) and “Domus” (Italy). 

Among her publications: 

• Giovanni Damiani, Thilo Folkerts, Paola Giaconia (eds.), The Kent State Forum on the City: BERLIN (dpr-barcelona, 2015).

• Paola Giaconia, Eugenio Pandolfini (eds.), The Kent State Forum on the City: MADRID (dpr-barcelona, 2013).

• Paola Giaconia (ed.), GEZA PRATIC (Silvana Editoriale, 2011).

• Marco Brizzi, Paola Giaconia (eds.), VISIONS (Image PUBLISHING, 2009).

• Paola Giaconia, Eric Owen Moss. The Uncertainty of Doing (Skira, 2006).

• Paola Giaconia (ed.), SPOT ON SCHOOLS. SCRIPT (Compositori, 2005). 

Since 2007 Paola teaches Architecture Studio at Kent State University, Study Abroad Program in Florence, Italy where, since 2011, she is also coordinator for the College of Architecture and Environmental Design (Architecture and Interior Design programs). At Kent State University Florence she orchestrates several streams of activity: from directing the academic program of the College of Architecture and Environmental Design to curating the lecture series and international symposia to teaching architecture and interior design studios. Since 2005 she teaches Architecture Studio at California State University Florence Program to 4th year students coming from CalPoly San Luis Obispo and Pomona and since 2009 she also coordinates the Architecture Program. 

She is partner at Image for Culture www.imageforculture.com, a strategic international media advisor for architecture, and co-director at The Architecture Curator www.thearchitecturecurator.com, supporting the creative development of emerging and established architecture practices. Paola is also is team member at The Architecture Player www.architectureplayer.com, a place to disclose new architecture stories, through video. 

Licensed as an architect in Italy since 1997, Paola brings a wealth of expertise to her roles as both a practitioner and educator. 

A native of Berkeley, California, Maia Wellington Gahtan received her B.A. in both History of Art and Linguistics and her Ph.D. in Renaissance Studies from Yale University. She is the recipient of grants from the Fulbright Foundation, the Andrew Mellon Foundation and Villa I Tatti. Formerly a curator at Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, and Program Director of the M.A. in Museum Studies at Marist-LdM Florence, her scholarly interests concentrate on textual criticism, the history of collecting and museums, and more generally on the interplay between intellectual/cultural history, language, literature and the representational arts, especially of the Early Modern period.

As program director, she supervised over 30 theses on subjects ranging from ancient collecting practice to Picasso and instituted a Forum on Museums and Religion dedicated to bringing religious authorities in dialogue with museum professionals which produced four conferences and publications which she edited or co-edited: Museum; Churches, Temples, Mosques, Places of Worship or Museums?; Sacred Objects in Sacred Collections; Sacred Art and the Museum Exhibition, and Religion in Museum Education. Since then, she has written articles about religion and collections for the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Religion and the Arts.

At the University of Rome La Sapienza, she is currently an Aggregate Professor for two Grande Progetti Ricerca (2021-2023; 2024-2026) and co-coordinator of a CIVIS/Erasmus+ course and workshop (2022-2026), both relating to her co-direction of the European language museum project, Eurotales - Museum of the Voices of Europe, and particularly its field venue, DIFFUSEUM, which embraces the fragments (called “traces’) of linguistic cultures—tangible and intangible—embedded in public monuments and material culture diffused through a borderless Europe.

She serves on the editorial boards of the Voci del Museo series at Edifir and the open- source journal, Arts, is a member of the Research Advisory Group of the Forum on Education Abroad, and belongs to numerous professional associations among which SISCA (Società Italiana della Storia della Critica d’Arte), ICOM (International Council on Museums), CAAH (Consortium of Art and Architectural Historians), and IANLS (International Association for Neo-Latin Studies). She regularly contributes to scholarly journals and edited collections and has curated exhibitions and edited a number of books beyond those of the Forum, among which Vasari’s Florence; Giorgio Vasari and the Birth of the Museum; Museum Archetypes and Collecting in the Ancient World; Monographic Exhibitions and the History of Art; Collecting and Empires. An Historical and Global Perspective; Museums of Language and the Display of Intangible Cultural Heritage.  

Alberto Francini (Florence, 1969), is an architect and PHD. He graduated from University of Florence with Professor Alberto Breschi in Urban Project. He wrote his PHD thesis on the shape of the city entitled MILANO IN THEORY with supervisor of Professor Cesare Macchi Cassia at Milan Polytechnic.  

He collaborated with architect Giuliano Fiorenzoli in New York (1995) and with architect Massimiliano Fuksas in Rome (1997-99). 

In 1999 he co-founded the architecture and urban planning firm METROGRAMMA, fulfilled the role of designer and project manager in the fields of architecture and urban planning.

In 2017 he began his personal activity and founded ALBERTO FRANCINI Architecture & Urban planning with headquarters in Milan and a branch office in Doha, Qatar.

He avails himself of many consultants and collaborators.

Many of his works and as Metrogramma owner have distinguished themselves and have become topics of international interest. Among the many planning projects, the urban densification scenarios for the growth of the city of Bolzano: Habitat BZ 2001 (Italian Gold Medal for Architecture) and the Territorial Government Plan of Milan city (PGT2011) currently in force; as regards architecture, the Domus Malles residences (INARCH 2010 Award), the third prize project at the international Competition the new Head Quarter of the Lombardy Region (2003) and the latest project near Milan, Scalo Milano City Style (2016), a contemporary shopping center oriented towards the world of design, food, and fashion, deserve a special mention.

Many are the projects abroad carried out by architect Alberto Francini such as the VVIP Buildings and the bridge claddings on the Qetaifan Islands of Lusail City in Qatar as well as a tourist resort dedicated to the world of skiing, called "Sunny Valley", in the Urals, Russia. 

Alberto Francini together with the Qatar Green Building Council and a multidisciplinary team of sociologists and engineers is carrying forward the idea and the project of a sustainable city, The Green Desert Shadow Project, without CO2 emissions and in which natural ventilation, biophilia and biodiversity contribute to reinterpreting the Qatari Heritage through a contemporary and futuristic eye.

In 2019 he  won an urban project for the development of a Russian district in Ekaterinburg, RC Brusnizin Masterplan in Berezovsky, still ongoing (The Plan Award 2020, Honorable Mention). He is currently carrying out for Earthna, a non-profit policy research and advocacy center, established by Qatar Foundation, a research of a sustainable high density building prototype completely independent from the planet's resources on hot arid sites. 

Since 2005 Alberto Francini teaches Architecture Studio at Kent State University in Florence.

He has been professor at South Ural University in Chelyabinsk RU from 2009 to 2015  and adjunct professor at Università degli Studi di Ferrara from 2007 to 2012. He was teaching assistant of Professor Cesare Macchi Cassia at Milan Polytechnic from 2000 to 2007.

Alberto Francini was responsible of several academic design activities both in Italy and abroad, among the others he thought in Columbia University in New York (USA), UIC, Chicago (USA), Strelka (Moscow), University of Mendrisio (CH), Detroit Mercy (USA), QUT Queensland University of Technologies (AUS),Qatar Green Building Council (QA), University of Milan, Rome, Ascoli, Pescara, Lucca, Genoa, Venice, Trieste, Florence, Syracuse University in Florence, Cornell University (USA), Domus Academy in Milan.

Alberto Francini has presented his works at many international architecture exhibitions such as Architettura in digitale, Comunità Resilienti, Biennale di Venezia in 2021; the 12th International Architecture Biennale, People Meet in Architecture in 2010; the 11th International Architecture Biennale, Out There in 2008.

Alberto Francini has been the curator with his office Metrogramma of the international Architecture Biennale “Barbara Cappochin” in 2010.

Many are his publications, books like ‘SuperInfrastructures. High-density productive settlements’ in 2003; ‘4city. Densification scenarios in Bolzano’ in 2001 and articles in international magazine such as Domus (Italy), Abitare (Italy), Metropolis (USA), The Plan (Italy) and The Plan Journal (USA). 

In 2019, he was appointed as a member of the Curatorial Team of the Italian Pavilion "Resilient Communities"-principal curator Alessandro Melis-at the 17th Venice Architecture Biennale, held in 2021, and in charge of the "Story of a Minute" section on resilient communities in the post-earthquake period.

His work has been published in various architectural magazines and portals such as Abitare, Domus, and Dezeen. At the same time, as a writer - free-lance critic - he writes and has written for architecture magazines such as Abitare, Area, and Domus. From 2008 to 2012 he edited "Opere," a Tuscan architectural magazine published by the Florence Architects Foundation.

He edited for Skira the monograph "DillerScofidio + Renfro,. The Ciliary Function "on the American studio designers of, among others, the High Line and "The Shed," and also for Skira, with Michela De Poli, "The Atlas of Recycled Landscapes." With Lettera Ventidue, "Transformations: stories of contemporary landscapes". Now about to come out, for D Editore, "Story of a Minute," an essay on the work executed for the 17th Architecture Biennale. 

Duccio Ferroni graduated in Architecture from the University of Florence in 1984. As a student he started working at Paolo Fiori’s architecture firm as a junior partner since 1980. In that position he developed key roles in planning and architectural design, especially abroad (Lagos, Nigeria). He later completed his education at the IIT in Chicago in 1989.In the same year he joined Perkins and Will architecture firm where he further increased his interests in social and institutional projects, under the supervision of chief designer and partner, Ralph Johnson. While still in Chicago he started his collaboration with the US-based Chilean architect Rodrigo del Canto, working on rehab projects for theaters, elementary schools as well as private residences. In 1995, following his unyielding commitment for different opportunities and challenges, he moved to Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia) to join Teknikaria architectural firm where he worked on large commercial and residential projects. 

He returned to Europe in 1996 and started his own architecture firm, while teaching at the University of Florence as adjunct professor in architectural design. He teaches at Kent State University in Florence since 2008. He currently works between Italy and the US (Chicago) where he still maintains strong professional collaborations with Mozer & Associates. His work especially focuses on historical building preservation and restoration. 

Sylvie Duvernoy is an architect, graduated from Paris University in 1982. Later in 1998 she received her PhD degree from the Architecture Department of the University of Florence, specializing in architectural drawing and representation. After teaching classes in architectural drawing for several years at the engineering and architecture schools of the University of Florence and the University of Ferrara, she currently teaches at the Design School of the Politecnico di Milano in addition to the Florence Program of Kent State University.  

Her PhD dissertation and following post-graduate research focus on the reciprocal influences between mathematics and historical architecture. The results of her studies have regularly been presented in international conferences, and published in several international journals. She has been editor for the Nexus Network Journal published by Springer, and is a founding member of the international association ”Nexus - Architecture and Mathematics”. 

In addition to research and teaching, Sylvie always maintained a private professional activity. After working for a few years in the Parisian office of an international Swiss architecture firm, she has been partner ever since 1989 of an associate office in Florence (“Studio Orsanmichele”), whose projects range from remodeling and restoration to new constructions, in Italy and abroad. 

Sylvie is also a visual artist: a watercolourist and painter. Her artworks have been shown in galleries and other spaces, especially in Paris-France (1985), in Valletta-Malta (1990), in Leipzig-Germany (since 1994), and more recently Florence and Padova in Italy. 

Among her many publications, the textbook written for students:

Sylvie Duvernoy, Elementi di disegno (Le Lettere, 2011). 

Roberto Nesti obtained his Master of Arts degree from the Fine Art High School in Florence in 1975 and graduated in architecture from the University of Florence in 1982. He published articles in the magazine “Professione Architetto” from 1985 to 1990. His activity includes architecture, interior design, industrial design, and writing. Since the 1990’s he has collaborated with the Smithsonian Institution, the Duracell Group, and several industrial design companies. He has had several professional experiences in the following countries: Russia, Hungary, Czech Republic, France, USA, Algeria. He taught interior design at SACI in Florence from 2004 to 2007. He was professor of digital design in the Fashion Department of the Faculty of Architecture in Florence, Italy from 1997 to 2007. Since 2008 he teaches Sketching and Drawing at Kent State University in Florence. 

Colomba Pecchioli, born in Florence in 1976, is an architect graduated with honors from the Faculty of Architecture of the University of Florence. 

Licensed as an architect since 2004, after being founder of collaborative networks such as "ottoperotto" with the aim of promoting contemporary architecture in Florence and being awarded in national and international competitions -among others, the New Pedestrian Mobile Bridge in the Arsenale site in Venice, she founded in 2012 as senior partner [P+P] architetti associati, working mainly on interior design projects and reuse and restoration projects on historical heritage for private clients. 

Since 2003 she flanked her professional activity with teaching activity, first in the Florence Faculty of Architecture as Teaching Assistant, then in IED -where she is Thesis Supervisor in the Interior Design Department and in SRISA-Santa Reparata International School of Art, where she is Adjunct professor of Design. In Kent State University -Florence Program she has been teaching since 2018 the Reading Cities Course and more recently the ID Studio. 

In 2009 she was a promoter of the renewal of the Board of Architects of Florence, becoming the first woman as a President in 2012. After that she was nominated as a Board Member of the Florence Architects Foundation, where she was elected President from 2019 to 2021. 

Jacopo Gresleri (Bologna 1971), architect, graduated with honor in Architectural Design at the University of Ferrara, PhD in "Architecture, Urban Design, Conservation of Housing and Landscape" at the Politecnico di Milano, he works as a freelance professional in Bologna. He’s a licensed Professorat Lector at AQU Catalunya. 

Adjunct professor of Architectural Design (English track) at Politecnico di Milano and of Reading Cities at Kent State University (Florence), previously at Politecnico di Torino and Università di Ferrara. A former Visiting Lecturer and Visiting Critic at BUT (Brno), Kent State University (Florence), California State University (Florence), NYIT (New York), Syracuse University (London), Maryland University (Florence), Roger Williams (Florence), Genoa, Alghero and Parma, he has participated as a speaker at conferences and seminars in Italy and abroad on the topics of cohousing, collaborative living and housing for the elderly. He has been involved in national research (Politecnico di Torino, Università di Ferrara, Università di Palermo in MIUR-PRIN and FAR) and international (Politecnico di Torino - EPFL Lausanne) and with ILAUD.  

Exhibition and architectural event curator, member of the Scientific Committee of the Licosia’s “Póleis” publishing series, and the author of essays, articles and monographs he also acts as a peer reviewer for some international Journals. 

Laura Visentin earned her undergraduate degree in Classics, specialization in Medieval Archaeology at the University of Florence with a thesis on Early Medieval  London (1997) written after an Academic year spent at Royal Holloway, University of London and in cooperation with the Museum of London.

She earned her three years Master in Medieval Archaeology at the University of Florence with a thesis on the history and archaeology of Corsignano, before her transformation in Pienza by pope Pio II. 

Since 2002 she is adjunct professor for  American Study abroad Programs; beside teaching, she also guide students to school’s fieldtrips in Tuscany, Venice and Rome. She has been teaching at AIFS, FUA, Lorenzo de’ Medici and Siena School For Liberal Arts a wide range of classes in the field of Archaeology and Art history, including courses on Pompeii, guiding students to Pompeii and Herculaneum.

Since 2014, she is adjunct Professor for Kent State Florence, holding a course on “Roman Achievement” and taking students to Rome, Venice and Siena.

Her main field of study is the historical and archaeological  transformation of the town from roman times to the medieval period.

She has digging experiences in Italy (i.e. Medieval Castles in Tuscany - 1995-1999, Benedectine monastery of San Vincenzo al Volturno, excavations directed by British school at Rome - 1995, Roman villa of Passo Lombardo in Rome - 1997) and abroad (Byzantine city of Halutza, excavations directed by University of Beer-Sheva, Israel - 2000).

Since 2016 Laura Visentin is also a free-lance Licensed Private Tour Guide. 

Laura Fenelli, originally from Parma, has a Ph.D in Medieval History from the University of Bologna.

Since 2007 she been living and working as an art historian in Florence. She works on the history of medieval and early modern images and saints’ iconography and hagiography. She has received several national and international fellowships (in Paris, EHESS; Berlin, UdK; London, the Warburg Institute, Bologna, Università degli Studi, Florence, KHI; Niki & Istituto Sangalli) and has published widely (including two books and several articles). Her ongoing research activities include ‘Saints’ Iconography between Middle Ages and Early Modern Times’ and ‘Tracing the devotional topography of the Miraculous Image in Post-Tridentine Europe’. Since 2009 she has taught medieval and modern art history for U.S. college programs in Florence. She has joined Kent State Florence in 2015, where she is the Arts and Sciences program coordinator and she teaches Renaissance Art. Since 2020 she also teaches an online class of Medieval Art for the School of Art of Kent State (OH).  Since 2013 she has helped develop high school art history textbooks for Italian publishers like Giunti TPV and Loescher. 

Tina Fallani earned her degree in Film Editing, Video and Film at the Scuola del Cinema, Regione Lombardia RAI, Italian Radio and Television Network. She earned her diploma in Script Writing with Tonino Guerra at Evviva Il Cinema, Repubblica di San Marino and studied Law at the University of Florence. She started teaching History of Italian Cinema in 1992 in Florence and currently teaches for Georgetown University Villa le Balze.

Since 2013 Prof. Fallani has taught Italian Cinema at Kent State University Florence. She has worked on many feature films, including: first assistant film editor, The Secret Garden, directed by Agnieszka Holland; assistant film editor, Dracula, directed by Francis Ford Coppola; first assistant film editor, The Godfather Trilogy, directed by Francis Ford Coppola; assistant film editor, Godfather III, directed by Francis Ford Coppola; assistant film editor, Henry and June, directed by Phil Kaufman; film and sound editor, The Neon Empire, directed by Larry Penn; sound editor, Mountains of the Moon, directed by Bob Rafelson; assistant sound editor, Dead Poets Society, directed by Peter Weir; film and sound editor for post-production, Best Shot, Fantasy Film Ltd.; translation consultant on Willow, directed by George Lucas; film and sound editor, Of Men and Angels, directed by William Farley; and worked on The Unbearable Lightness of Being, directed by Phil Kaufman.

She has been a jury member at the San Francisco International Film Festival and a coordinator of the Florence Film Festival. 

Francesca Passeri, Ph.D., is Professor of Branding and Social Media Strategies for Italian Lifestyle and Professor of Luxury Market at Kent State University Florence Center. She earned a BA at the School of Law (1998) and an MA in Communication and Media (2000) from The University of Florence and a PhD in Information Communication Technology (2012) from the University of Florence.

Before starting her academic career, she worked and collaborated with important fashion and luxury brands.

At KSU Florence she has been working as professor since 2012 and she taught a variety of courses for the College of Communication and Information, for the Fashion Program and for the College of Hospitality Management.  Since 2018 she has been coordinating the Hospitality Management internship program for the College of Education Health and Human Services. She also participated in academic activities, fieldtrips and lectures.

She collaborated as adjunct professor with the College of Political Science, University of Florence coordinating the academic activities of the international program CoMundus as well as teaching marketing and communication related courses within the same program. As adjunct professor, she also taught marketing and communication at the College of Political Science, University of Florence, and she organized courses of public speaking within the same college. She also collaborated and collaborates as adjunct professor for several American College Programs in Florence, teaching fashion and luxury related courses as well as marketing and communication courses. 

As a researcher, she is interested in brands and brand communication strategies, with a focus on made in Italy and its main fields in particular Italian fashion, Italian design, Italian food, and wine.  Her researches are also focused on sustainable practices in fashion and luxury, marketing strategies of Italian lifestyle related brands, as well as on the analysis of brand management in luxury and fashion.

She has published various articles focused on sustainability in fashion, fashion and culture, fashion corporate museums as tool of brand communication.  In 2019, she participated at the cultural festival “L’eredità delle donne”, at Kent State University Florence within the panel “From luxury to excellence. New branding strategies of Italian Lifestyle and the role of women in the construction of the country branding made in Italy”.

In 2019, she participated to the Rome Fellows Symposium, Richmond University “From Handcraft to Luxury: Branding Italian Style”. In 2019, she organized the conference “Study Abroad: the discomfort zone. Teaching the Other: Intercultural Challenges in Study Abroad”, at ISI Florence. In 2020, she participated at the conference “Colors, fabrics, patterns – African fashion as inspiration and identity statement”, Black History Month Florence, ISI Florence.

In 2020, she coauthored the journal “Beyond” The ISI Florence and Umbra Institute Studies in International Education.

She is founder and member of FLICK (cultural association), Factory for Learning International Culture and Cross Creative Knowledge.