Roberta Raffaetà

Principal Investigator

Roberta Raffaetà is associate professor of socio-cultural anthropology.  Her research stays at the intersection of medical anthropology, environmental anthropology and science & technology studies. She studies how to live well and caring for each other in an entangled and more-than-human planet. She received a PhD in Social Sciences at the University of Lausanne in 2008, then she has been granted a Marie Curie (Trento University and Monash, 2010-2013) and a Fulbright (UCLA, 2018) fellowship.

Victor Secco

Research grant holder

Victor Secco is a Research Fellow at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice and a PhD candidate in Social Anthropology at the University of Manchester. His doctoral research has focused on the interface of microbiological research on bacteriophage viruses and the uses of water for ritual purposes in the context of the Ganges River in North India. Working ethnographically in between laboratories and landscapes, he is interested in the coming together of health and environment across contexts and scales, themes that he will explore further in his current research as part of HealthXCross.

Valeria Burgio

Post-doc research grant holder

Valeria Burgio's research focuses on scientific images and data visualization. Her approach crosses and overlaps visual semiotics, critical design studies and science and technology studies. She studied Communication Science at the University of Bologna and received a PhD in Art Theories at the Iuav University of Venice. She received postdoc grants at the EHESS in Paris and at the Iuav University of Venice and she was a researcher (RTD-A) for six years at the University of Bolzano. Her research for the HealthXCross project focuses on the visualization of the microbiome in relationship with the technology used to observe it and the role of the technical images in the laboratory discourse.

Man Kei Tam

Post-doc research grant holder [FARE SHK_HealthXCross project]

Mankei (MK) is a cultural anthropologist who graduated from the Chinese University of Hong Kong (2018). His research is integrated into the ERC HealthXCross project through the FARE SHK_HealthXCross project, which focuses on the relationships between global health/biopolitics and microbiome technoscience evolving in Hong Kong and other key hubs that situate China globally. Before joining the HealthXCross project, his project concerned citizens’ self-empowering practices in critical assessments of radiation risks and their collaborations with scientists to explore new forms of agriculture after the Fukushima nuclear disaster. His research interests include Political Ecology, Science and Technology Studies, multispecies ethnography, and studies in social movements.

Lucilla Barchetta

Post-doc research grant holder

Lucilla is a cultural anthropologist with a PhD in Urban Studies. Her work focuses on the intersections between ecology, urban socio-ecological change and globalization and is sustained by an in-depth ethnographic approach to the study of multibeings life and health. She is interested in the grounded work of navigating the dimensions of everyday, environmental justice and its links with more-than-human cohabitation. Her first monograph is titled “La rivolta del verde. Nature e rovine a Torino”, published by AgenziaX (Terrae series) in 2021. 

Marta Scaglioni

Post-doc research grant holder

Marta is a Post Doc Fellow and holds a PhD in Anthropology at the University of Bayreuth in Co-Tutelle with the University of Milano-Bicocca. She studied at BIGSAS (Bayreuth International Graduate School of African Studies) and her PhD research was carried out in Southern Tunisia on the heritage of slavery and on racial issues. Her book, "Becoming the Abid. Lives and Social Origins in Southern Tunisia", was published by Ledizioni in 2020. She is interested in post-colonial discourses and in science and knowledge diffusion within the African continent, and she contributes to the ERC project HealthXCross (GA n.949742) mainly within the research strand "Spaces of Innovation".

Valentina Marcheselli

Post-doc research grant holder

Valentina is an anthropologist of science interested in knowledge making practices at the intersection between microbial, environmental and planetary scales. Valentina studied Cultural Anthropology at the University of Bologna, before moving to the University of Edinburgh where she gained a PhD in Science, Technology and Innovation Studies with a thesis on the emergence of astrobiology, a discipline committed to the study and search for life in the universe. During her first post-doc, Valentina explored the embodied, local and situated nature of knowledge making practices and environmental sensibilities. Her research interests include the social construction of science and technology; the assemblage of imaginaries, embodiments and practices in a more-than-human world; and the space and time of innovation.

Antonia Majaca

PhD Fellow
Antonia Majaca is a member of the HealthXCross research group and a doctoral student in the Department of Philosophy and Cultural Heritage at Ca' Foscari University of Venice. She is an independent writer, editor, and curator. Her work spans environmental philosophy, political epistemology, and critical Anthropocene theory. She is the editor of "Incomputable Earth: Technology and the Anthropocene Hypothesis" (Bloomsbury, 2024). In the project, Antonia's primary role is to contextualize the HealthXCross research within the broader discourse of critical environmental philosophy and art, bringing a unique transdisciplinary, curatorial perspective to the team's work. Antonia's research, drawing on materialist feminist, decolonial, and Indigenous epistemologies, focuses on how thinking across scales and bio-geological interdependencies can inform a reconceptualization of 'planetary health'.

Silvia Bellacicco

Project manager

Silvia Bellacicco is an expert in European funding and Euro-planning, as well as in project management and implementation. She holds a degree in Marine Environmental Sciences (2000) from the “Ca’ Foscari” Università di Venezia, and since 2001 she has worked on European funding for public bodies such as municipalities, research institutes/universities, as well as civil regions and private companies. She has extensive experience in project/partnership coordination and management, and in providing technical and financial assistance for the project leaders and partners.