Research Team

Anna Balestra

Dr. Anna Balestra is a Postdoctoral Researcher at Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, where she completed her Ph.D. in 2025. Her academic work sits at the intersection of peace and political economy, with a particular focus on the economic dimensions of security and conflict. Her research focuses on the military industry, the international arms trade, civil conflicts, and economic policy. More broadly, her interests include Peace Economics and the design of evidence-based economic policies to support stability and post-conflict recovery.

Adelaide Baronchelli

Dr. Adelaide Baronchelli is Senior Research Assistant in Economics and Statistics at the University of Turin and Senior Research Fellow at the Brandenburg Institute for Society and Security (BIGS). She was a Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Verona. She holds an MSc in Economics from the University of Essex and a Ph.D. in Institutions and Policies from the Catholic University of Milan. Her research spans Peace, International, and Institutional Economics, with recent work on trade in major conventional weapons and small arms/light weapons.

Lorenzo Arras

Lorenzo Arras is a PhD candidate in Management and Innovation at Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore and holds a Master’s in Management of Social Economy from the University of Bologna. His research focuses on organizational studies, with interests in corporate governance, worker participation, and hybrid organizations that blend social and commercial logics. He examines governance mechanisms, participatory models, and impact measurement in mission-driven firms and cooperatives, contributing to debates on stakeholder engagement and sustainable organizational design.

Sara Mombelli

Sara Mombelli is PhD student in Peace Economics in the National PhD Program in Peace Studies at Sapienza University of Rome and a visiting student at Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore (Milan). Her research focuses on military expenditure and defense burden sharing in the European Union, with attention to institutional design, fiscal capacity, and alliance incentives. The Peace Studies program equips her with advanced skills in conflict and military-spending data analysis and in mixed-methods research, combining quantitative and qualitative approaches.

Giulia Tringali

Giulia Tringali is a PhD candidate in Peace Studies (Peace Economics curriculum) at Sapienza Università di Roma and holds a Master’s in Policies for International Cooperation and Development from Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore. She previously worked in the humanitarian sector in West Africa on youth and women’s empowerment, food security, and agricultural development. Her research focuses on institutional responsiveness, social movements and political violence, with particular attention to corruption and terrorism, youth mobilization, and peace-building practices.