Luisa Chiodi is the Director of the Osservatorio Balcani Caucaso Transeuropa. She holds a PhD in Social and Political Science from the European University Institute of Fiesole (Florence) and a degree in Political Science from the University of Milan. From 2003 to 2008, she was a lecturer in Eastern European Studies at the Faculty of Political Science at the University of Bologna. She has coordinated several research projects and is the author of publications on civil society and transnational social dynamics.