Silvia Colombo is Associate Fellow in the Mediterranean, Middle East and Africa programme at IAI. She is also a Researcher and Faculty Advisor at the NATO Defense College in Rome. Her research work focuses on contemporary politics in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, the EU and US foreign policy towards and their role in conflicts in the Middle East as well as the implications for NATO. Among her research interests there are also the relations between the EU and the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council. On these issues, she has published one monograph (Routledge), 6 peer-reviewed articles, 11 edited books, 10 book chapters and numerous research papers and commentaries. She holds a Ph.D. in Comparative Politics from the Scuola Normale Superiore of Pisa and a Master’s Degree in Near and Middle Eastern Studies from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London. Sha has taught at the Centre International de Formation Européenne (CIFE), Nice – Tunis – Istanbul, and has given lectures and seminars in the fields of comparative politics and international relations of the MENA in several academic institutions as well as has organized/participated in policy workshops and conferences both in Europe and in the MENA countries. She has pursued extensive fieldwork in the MENA region and speaks Arabic fluently.

Nathalie Tocci is Director of the Istituto Affari Internazionali, part-time professor at the School of Transnational Governance (European University Institute), Honorary Professor at the University of Tübingen and independent non-executive director of the multi utility company Acea. She has been Special Advisor to EU High Representatives Federica Mogherini and Josep Borrell. In that capacity, she wrote the European Global Strategy and worked on its implementation.
She is Europe’s Futures fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences (Institut für die Wissenschaften vom Menschen, IWM). She was Pierre Keller Visiting Professor at the Harvard Kennedy School and, prior to joining Acea, she was independent board member first of Edison and then of Eni. She has held research positions at the Centre for European Policy Studies, Brussels, the Transatlantic Academy, Washington, the European University Institute, Florence, and has taught at the College of Europe, Bruges.
Her research interests include European integration and European foreign policy, the Middle East, Eastern Europe, transatlantic relations, multilateralism, conflict resolution, energy, climate and defence.
Her major publications include: Framing the EU's Global Strategy, Springer-Palgrave Macmillan, 2017 (author); The EU, Promoting Regional Integration, and Conflict Resolution, Springer-Palgrave Macmillan, 2017 (co-editor); Turkey and the European Union, Palgrave Macmillan, 2015 (co-author); Multilateralism in the 21st Century, Routledge, 2013 (co-editor), Turkey’s European Future: Behind the Scenes of America’s Influence on EU-Turkey Relations, New York University Press, 2011 (author); and The EU and Conflict Resolution, Routledge, 2007 (author); A Green and Global Europe, Polity, 2022 (author).
Nathalie is a frequent media commentator, with regular op-eds in Politico Europe, La Stampa and The Guardian, as well as being a regular panellist on BBC’s “The Context”. She has published in Foreign Affairs, El Pais, Project Syndicate, and is often interviewed by major international television and newspaper outlets, including Al Jazeera, BBC, Bloomberg, CNN, Euronews, PBS, Sky, The New York Times, The Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, El Pais, Le Monde, Deutsche Welle, amongst others.
She is represented by Chartwell Speakers and Elastica.