Alessandra is the Head of the Disaster Risk Management Unit at the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre. The mission of this Unit is to strengthen the EU’s resilience to crises and disasters and to help implement the EU’s aim to promote stability and peace through its research in crisis management technologies as well as in information mining and analysis. Alessandra is also responsible for running the European Commission’s Knowledge Centre on Disaster Risk Management.
Her career started in Brussels, where she joined the European Commission immediately after graduating in Economics, at the University of Genoa. She spent several years formulating transport policies, first in the competent Commission services and then in the Cabinet of Vice President De Palacio. In 2009 she joined the Joint Research Centre as Head of the Maritime Affairs Unit tasked with developing scientific and technological methodologies for EU policies related to the sea. Subsequently she was appointed Head of the Demography, Migration and Governance Unit where she was responsible for the Knowledge Centre on Migration and Demography (KCMD) that aims to provide EU migration policymakers with policy-relevant knowledge and evidence-based analysis.
