Valeria Talbot is a senior research fellow and the co-head of the Middle East and North Africa Centre at the Italian Institute of International Political Studies (ISPI). She also is a lecturer at the Master in Middle Eastern Studies at Alta Scuola di Economia e Relazioni Internazionali (ASERI) of the Catholic University of Milan. Her main research areas focus on Euro-Mediterranean relations, Turkey’s domestic and foreign policy, the Gulf monarchies, and the Middle East geopolitics. She is active as a scholar, contributing to research projects and publishing several papers, articles and edited books. She also is a regular speaker and commentator on MENA issues in the main Italian media.