Paola Tessari is senior fellow in the “Defence, security and space” programme at IAI, where she leads EU-projects on civil security and civil defence, with a focus on CBRN threats (Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear) and critical infrastructures’ protection. Graduated in 2013 from the School of International Studies in Trento, she served as Advisor to the Italian National Authority for the Implementation of the Chemical Weapons Convention and the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (2016-2018). In 2024 she worked for the Delegation of the Italian G7 Presidency as consultant on arms control, disarmament and non-proliferation.

Federica Di Camillo is Deputy Director of the Istituto Affari Internazionali and Senior fellow at the “Defence, security and space” programme. Her expertise lies in the fields of security and defence at the national and European levels, especially focusing on institutions and policies, R&D&I and security markets, dual-use technologies and non-conventional threats (CBRN).
Since 2005, she has been in charge of various EU-funded research security projects and has held seminars in numerous Italian universities. She is the IAI’s representative for both the R&S IMG-S (Integrated Mission Group for Security) and SERIT (Security Research in Italy) Platforms. In 2010, she was selected to participate in the U.S. State Department’s International Visitor Leadership Program on "U.S.-European Security Issues".
She studied law in Rome, during which time she spent some semesters at the Panthéon-Assas University in Paris, and went on to obtain a PhD in industrial production engineering from the Faculty of Information Engineering, Informatics, and Statistics of "La Sapienza" University in Rome, with a thesis on “The influence of organizational and management factors in dual-use innovation processes”.