Rectorate

Gabriele Balbi is Full Professor in Media Studies at the Institute of Media and Journalism (IMeG), Faculty of Communication, Culture and Society, USI Università della Svizzera italiana (Switzerland). At this institution, he is Pro-Rector for Education and Students' Experience, program director of the Bachelor in Communication, director of the China Media Observatory, and vice director of the Institute of Media and Journalism. Furthermore, he is Vice-Chair of ICA Communication History Division. 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 has been lecturer and visiting professor at several universities: Harvard, Maastricht, Columbia, Westminster, Oxford, Northumbria, Perugia, Augsburg, and Concordia. His main research area is media history. He has held the position of Rector on an interim basis since January 1, 2026. 

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Antonio Carzaniga is Full Professor and founding member (since 2004) of the Faculty of Informatics at Università della Svizzera italiana. He earned his degree in Electronic Engineering and his PhD in Computer Science from Politecnico di Milano in 1994 and 1999, respectively. From 2001 to 2007, he was also Assistant Research Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Colorado at Boulder. His primary research interests are in the areas of distributed systems, software engineering, and communication networks. Antonio Carzaniga has served his faculty and USI in various roles. Among these, he was Dean of the Faculty of Informatics from 2017 to 2021, was a member of the Research Commission, and is a member of the Scientific Committee of the USI Startup Centre.

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Fabio Crestani has been a full professor at USI Faculty of Informatics since January 2007. Before coming to Lugano, he was (full) Professor at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow (UK) since 2000. During that time he was a Visiting Professor at IMAG (France), and spent a year sabbatical at UC Berkeley (USA) and Xerox PARC (USA). In 1997-1999 he was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Glasgow (UK), at the International Computer Science Institute in Berkeley (USA), and at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (UK). Earlier, in 1992-97 he was Assistant Professor at the Department of Information Engineering of the University of Padova (Italy). While at USI, Fabio Crestani held a Catedra de Excellencia at the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (Spain), an Isambard Kingdom Brunell Fellowship at the University of Portsmouth (UK) and spent sabbaticals at Yahoo! (USA) and the National Intitute of Informatics in Tokyo (Japan). Fabio Crestani holds a degree in Statistics from the University of Padova (Italy) and an MSc and PhD in Computing Science from the University of Glasgow (UK). His main research areas are Information Retrieval, Text Mining and Digital Libraries. He has authored one book, co-edited 14 and published over 300 articles. He was editor-in-chief of Information Processing and Management (Elsevier) from 2008 to 2015 and is still a member of the editorial board of a number of journals.

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Sonja Hildebrand is Full Professor for the History of modern and contemporary architecture at USI Academy of Architecture and member of the Board of the Institute of the History and Theory of Art and Architecture (ISA). She obtained her PhD in Art History at TU München in 1997 where she habilitated in 2008. Before joining USI in 2011 she held research and teaching positions at TU München, Universität Bamberg, Universität Zürich and ETH Zürich. She was Vice Dean for Research at the Academy of Architecture from 2017 to 2020 and served her Faculty and USI in various functions, amongst others as a co-President of the Accademy Doctoral Board, member of the Accademy Teaching Commission and USI Research Commission. Her research focuses on the history of architectural culture and theory of the 19th and 20th centuries. She was responsible for various research projects at TU München, ETH Zürich and USI funded by the SNSF and other Swiss and German research agencies. Currently she leads an SNSF project on Gottfried Semper’s main theoretical work „Der Stil“ (with Philip Ursprung, ETH Zürich). She published widely on the history of modern architecture and urbanism, architectural theory and education. Her publications include two monographs and ten edited volumes.

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Raphaël Parchet is a Full Professor of Economics at the Institute of Economics (IdEP) and the Institute for Economic Research (IRE) of the Faculty of Economics. He joined USI in 2013 as an Assistant Professor after a year of postdoctoral research at the University of Basel and the University of Lausanne. He obtained his PhD in Economics from the University of Lausanne in 2012, a Master of Science in Economics in 2007 and a Master of Science in Political Science in 2003, all from the same institution. His research interests focus primarily on taxation, tax competition, and the interplay between economic policies and political institutions. Since 2023, he has served as the Director of the Bachelor's in Economics.

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Giovanni Zavaritt (1979) holds a PhD in Political Communication and an Executive Master of Science in Communications Management. From 2014 to 2019 he was Head of Communication at USI. Since 2015 he has been member of the Board of the Science et Cité foundation. Giovanni Zavaritt is Secretary General of USI from September 2019.

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Milan Savic (1991) obtained his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Economics from the University of Fribourg in 2016 and his Executive MBA from the Università della Svizzera italiana in 2025. After serving as a Coordinator at USI’s Research Service (2017–2022), he held the position of Co-Head of the Finance and Controlling Area and Service (2022–2024). As of December 1, 2024, he has been Adjunct Director of Operations of USI and, as of March 1, 2025, he has been serving as Director of Operations on an interim basis.

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