Alessia Melcangi is Tenure Track Assistant Professor of Contemporary History of North Africa and the Middle East and of Globalization and International Relations at the Department of Social Sciences and Economics, Sapienza University of Rome and Non-Resident Senior Fellow for the North Africa and Middle East Program at the Atlantic Council of Washington D.C., Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East. She collaborates with the Centre of Research on the Southern System and the Wider Mediterranean (CRiSSMA – Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, Milan) and she is a member of the scientific committee of ReaCT – Osservatorio sul Radicalismo e il Contrasto al Terrorismo and of the The Military Center for Strategic Studies (Ce.Mi.SS) of the Centre for Defense Higher Studies (CASD) of Rome. Her research is mainly into conflict and governance in the Middle East and North Africa; geopolitics and international relations in the Euro-Mediterranean area; identity and polarization dynamics in the contemporary Middle East; political and social issues in contemporary Egypt and Libya. Regarding these issues she has published several monographs, peer review articles in Italian and international journals and policy papers for international think tanks. Her latest monographs are: Melcangi A., Statualità e minoranze: meccanismi di resistenza e integrazione in Medio Oriente. Il caso dei cristiani copti in Egitto (Ledizioni, Milano 2018); Melcangi A., I copti nell’Egitto di Nasser. Tra politica e religione (1952-1970) (Carocci, Roma 2017). She also co-edited the volume North African Societies After the Arab Spring: Between Democracy and Islamic Awakening (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Newcastle upon Tyne 2016).