Ludovica Castelli

Ludovica Castelli is Research Fellow for International security in the IAI's "Geoeconomics and global governance" programme, where she also serves as Project Manager of the EU Non-Proliferation and Disarmament Consortium (EUNPDC). She is also an Associate with the Project on Managing the Atom at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. She holds a Ph.D. in International Relations from the University of Leicester, where she was part of the ERC-funded Third Nuclear Age project. Her work focuses on Critical Security Studies, conceptual history, and nuclear politics, with a particular focus on the Middle East. Ludovica has presented her work at numerous academic and Track 1.5 venues across the United States, the Middle East, and Europe, and has published in academic journals as well as policy papers and commentaries. She is a co-author of The Global Third Nuclear Age (Routledge, 2025) and is currently working on her first monograph, based on her doctoral thesis.

Her publications include:
- (with Andrew Futter et al.), The Global Third Nuclear Age. Clashing Visions for a New Era in International Politics, Routledge, 2025
- (with Jacopo Scita), “Proliferation Risks in the Persian Gulf and the Prospects for Chinese Nuclear Diplomacy”, in Bourse & Bazaar Special Reports, February 2024
- (with Olamide Samuel), “Justifying attacks on nuclear facilities”, in The Nonproliferation Review, Vol. 30, No. 1-3 (2023), p. 83-105
- “Why Does Saudi Arabia Want to Acquire the Nuclear Fuel Cycle?”, in Stimson Commentaries, 3 March 2023