Valentina Giannini

Valentina Giannini is a researcher at the Euro-Mediterranean Centre on Climate Change (since 2009) where she is developing methods to support decision-making and foster knowledge integration for climate change adaptation, disaster risk reduction, urban and land-use planning, and natural resources management. Her main task is to coordinate research efforts to bridge the gap between knowledge and decision making. This is achieved through enabling synergies for the identification of impacts of climate on society (i.e. identifying needs), and designing decision-making processes based on knowledge (i.e. addressing needs). Valentina developed this interest after graduating in Architecture and Planning (Politecnico di Milano, Italy - 1996) where she worked, e.g., in a multidisciplinary group to draft the land-use plan of two medium sized Italian cities (1997-2005). This experience, along with her work and her academic background (Master of Environmental Management, Yale University, USA - 2007), led her to focus first on decision-making processes (starting in 2008 when she began to work for FEEM), and then more broadly on the integration and sharing of local, traditional and scientific knowledge in a decision making process during her PhD (Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, Italy – 2012), and while working at CMCC.