Barbara Faedda

Barbara Faedda is the Interim Director of the Italian Academy for Advanced Studies at Columbia University. She received her Ph.D. in Legal Anthropology and Social Science from the Università Suor Orsola Benincasa di Napoli after studying at Sapienza Università di Roma (Laurea in Lettere). She studied in Paris at the Summer Institute of International & Comparative Law (Cornell Law School and Université Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne), and at Boston University (as a visiting scholar). Her background includes experience in an Italian luxury fashion firm in Rome in the 1990s and a continuing research interest in food and fashion studies.

Dr. Faedda is also Adjunct Professor in Columbia's Department of Italian, where she teaches courses on contemporary Italy.

In 2016, she conceived the International Observatory for Cultural Heritage (IOCH), dedicated to all issues relating to the survival, protection, conservation, and use of cultural heritage. Among the programs she has designed are the annual Holocaust Remembrance Day; Women Leaders Now (annual events for Women's History Month and International Women's Day); and the Rule of Law Initiative. In 2016 she also relaunched the Italian Academy publications, as an author and as an editor.

In 2019, Dr. Faedda was appointed Ambassador, Permanent Observer for the European Public Law Organization to the United Nations. She presented her credentials on May 21, in New York, to the Secretary-General of the U.N., António Guterres. (The Italian Republic is among the founding members of EPLO.)  

Her alma mater, Sapienza Università di Roma (which is over 700 years old), named Dr. Faedda as an Illustrious Alumna in 2020, and in 2024 it granted her the academic honor of Ambassador of Sapienza University of Rome.

In 2022 the President of the Italian Republic named Barbara Faedda a "Commendatore Ordine al Merito della Repubblica" (Commander of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic).

Selected publications and articles published by Dr. Faedda avaialble here.