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Serenella Sferza is a co-director of the MIT-Italy Program, created by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with the aim of strengthening collaboration and the exchange of ideas and “brains” between MIT and Italy. Born in Milan, she obtained a degree in Political Science from Statale University (Milan), after which she joined MIT as Fulbright Fellow and achieved a PhD in Political Science. After her doctorate, Sferza began teaching Comparative Politics in various American and European universities. She then returned to MIT, where, in addition to coordinating the MIT-Italy Program, she teaches Political Economy and acts as an advisor for an inter-disciplinary programme of applied international studies. She is also an affiliate of Harvard’s Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, within which she co-directs a group dealing with problems and reform of secondary education in Europe.
During her activity as a political scientist, Sferza has focused primarily on comparative politics and on the formation and reform of political parties, with a particular emphasis on the French case. As a coordinator of the MIT-Italy Program, she has been primarily concerned with the relationship between technology and society and with intercultural communication. Along with the other 9 programmes that make up the MISTI International Science and Technology Initiatives, the MIT-Italy programme is one of the major contributors to the internationalisation of the institute’s educational resources. In recent years, Sferza has launched numerous collaborations between MIT and a number of excellent Italian players in the fields of academic research, namely the Politecnico of Milan and Politecnico of Turin, business (Ferrari and ENEL), regional management (Trentino Development) and innovation (Innovation Agency). A recent pilot project foresees the application of the MIT’s experimental, hands on approach to the teaching of maths and physics in several Italian high schools via the presence, in these institutions, of MIT students with considerable experience in these subjects.
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