I am an Associate Professor in the Department of Public and International Affairs at the City University of Hong Kong. Previously, I was a tenured Assistant Professor (UD1) of Ethics and Political Philosophy at Delft University of Technology. Before that, I served as an International Postdoctoral Fellow at the School of Philosophy, Wuhan University, China, and was awarded the 2019 China International Postdoctoral Exchange Fellowship. I obtained my doctorate in political philosophy in June 2018 through the King’s College London–National University of Singapore Joint PhD Programme.
My research concerns Comparative political theory, Contemporary Confucian political theory, and democratic theory. I am particularly interested in the role of political leaders in democracy, political and democratic leadership, political equality, and methodological issues in Comparative and ‘non-Western’ political theory. My first book, Meritocratic Democracy: A Cross-Cultural Political Theory, was published in 2024 by Oxford University Press.
I am originally from a small village in the province of Parma in northern Italy (with family ties in India), but since 2013 I have lived and worked in Singapore, London, Wuhan, the Netherlands, and Hong Kong.