Alessandra Faggian is Professor of Applied Economics, Director of Social Sciences at the Gran Sasso Science Institute (GSSI), L’Aquila, Italy. She is also former President of the North American Regional Science Council (NARSC), former Vice President of the Italian Economic Association (SIE), current co-editor of the Journal of Regional Science and former editor of the journal Papers in Regional Science. Dr Faggian’s research interests lie in the fields of regional and urban economics, demography, labour economics and economics of education. Her publications cover a wide range of topics including migration, human capital, labour markets, creativity, and local innovation and growth. She has co-authored over 80 academic publications. Her articles have appeared in journals such as Oxford Economics Papers, the Cambridge Journal of Economics, Feminist Economics, Regional Studies, Papers in Regional Science, the Journal of Regional Science and the Journal of Economic Geography. Alessandra is the 2007 recipient of the Moss Madden Memorial Medal by the Regional Science Association International: Irish and British section (RSAIBIS) for the best paper published in 2006, and the 2015 recipient of the Geoffrey Hewings Award by the North American Regional Council for outstanding research contribution by a young scholar in the field of regional science. In a recent ranking of the top 100 regional scientists in the world (Rickman and Winters, 2016), she was ranked 19th.