Gabriele Balbi appointed Pro-Rector for Education and Students' Experience

Prof. Gabriele Balbi takes over from Prof. Lorenzo Cantoni from 1 January 2024 and supports the other members of the Rectorate in the overall management of the University, with particular attention to aspects related to education and university life.

Gabriele Balbi is a Full Professor of Media Theories at the Institute of Media and Journalism (IMeG), Faculty of Communication, Culture and Society, at Università della Svizzera italiana (USI). He is also the Director of the Bachelor's degree course in Communication, Director of the Observatory on Media and Communication in China and Vice-Director of the Institute of Media and Journalism. Since 2022, he has served as Vice President of the Communication History Division of the ICA and from 2018 to 2022, he was Chair of the Communication History Section of ECREA. He received a BA and MA in Communication Sciences at the University of Turin (Italy) in 2002 and 2004 and a PhD in Communication Sciences and Social History of Communication at USI in 2008. He was a lecturer in media and politics at Northumbria University from 2012 to 2013. He has been a visiting professor at several universities in various countries, such as Harvard, Maastricht, Columbia, Westminster, Oxford, Northumbria, Perugia, Augsburg, Concordia and Bologna. His main research area is media and communication history, and he has published over 100 scholarly books, chapters and articles. Among his most recent publications is the book "The Digital Revolution. A Short History of an Ideology" (Oxford University Press, 2023). Currently, he is the lead researcher of an SNSF-funded research project entitled "The origins and spread of the World Wide Web. Rediscovering the early years of the Web inside and outside the CERN archive (1989-1995)", in collaboration with CERN.

The Rectorate is one of USI's central bodies, together with the University Council and the Academic Senate. It is responsible for the smooth running of the entire university and draws up its planning and development activities. The USI Rectorate includes the Rector, the Pro-rectors, the Secretary General and the Director of Operations and its functions are specified in the Statute of the Università della Svizzera italiana. The current members are Luisa Lambertini (Rector), Cesare Alippi (Pro-Rector for Internationalisation), Patrick Gagliardini (Pro-Rector for Research), Luca Maria Gambardella (Pro-Rector for Innovation and Corporate Relations), Sonja Hildebrand (Pro-Rector for Research in the Humanities and Equal Opportunities), Giovanni Zavaritt (Secretary General) and Marvin Blumer (Director of Operations).

USI warmly thanks Prof. Lorenzo Cantoni for the valuable work carried out from 2018 until now for the University and wishes him a profitable sabbatical  in which he can dedicate himself profitably to his scientific research.