The First Day Never Ends

What makes a public administration effective without compromising democratic principles? Anthony Bertelli has dedicated his research to this question for over twenty years. He returns to Bocconi as a full professor in the Department of Social and Political Sciences from the College of Liberal Arts at Pennsylvania State University and the Barcelona Institute of International Studies, having also taught at the University of Southern California and New York University. One of the world’s leading scholars of public administration and governance, he analyzes the relationship between political institutions, bureaucracy, and decision-making processes, demonstrating how the functioning of administrations influences the quality of public policies and democratic representation. He is the Principal Investigator of the REPGOV project, funded by an ERC Advanced Grant.

Tell us about your first day at university as a student and then as a professor. An anecdote, a memory...

My first day at university was in 1988, at the University of Illinois. I was away from my hometown in Pennsylvania for the first time, surrounded by people I did not know, on a campus that felt very large and unfamiliar. As a first-generation student, I also had no real family context for what university life would be like. So, I was anxious. I do not remember every detail of that day, but I remember being excited, but also unsure of myself and of the environment I had just entered.
My first day as a professor was in 2001, teaching PhD students. I liked the students immediately, but I also learned very quickly that being knowledgeable is not the same as being able to communicate well. I had to learn how to explain ideas in a way that was useful to them. That experience taught me that communication with students is a skill, and one that professors have to keep honing throughout our careers.

A piece of advice for freshmen on how to best navigate university life

My advice to freshmen is: this too shall pass. That is equally true for the painful and the magnificent moments. The anxiety and pressure will pass, but so will the excitement, friendships, discoveries, and opportunities. So, do not waste a moment. Be present, give all of it your full attention, and try to make the most of it.

What are your own expectations as you arrive at Bocconi?

As I return to Bocconi, I feel very hopeful. I was a full professor here from 2018 to 2021, have missed the intellectual environment immensely. Bocconi is a place where serious ideas and ambitious people come together, and I am very much looking forward to being part of that again. I also feel that I am returning in a better mindset to experience the rest of life in Milan, beyond the university itself. So, this return feels both familiar and novel.

The rules of political competition influence how democracies function and make decisions. Hunter York joins the Department of Social and Political Sciences at Bocconi as an Associate Professor from Princeton University, where he earned his PhD, to explore the relationship between institutions, political behavior, and democratic representation. His research analyzes electoral systems, political parties, and decision-making processes using quantitative and comparative methods, with the aim of understanding how institutions can foster more effective governments and more accountable representation. His work contributes to the international debate on the evolution of contemporary democracies and the challenges posed by growing political polarization.

Tell us about your first day at university as a student and then as a professor. An anecdote, a memory...

Seated in the university’s largest classroom for my very first college lecture, I was suddenly struck by all the questions I had thereunto given no thought to: Where do I sit in the lecture hall? Should I ask questions? Do I take notes on pen and paper or on a laptop? When the class began, an effervescent man (our professor) took the stage, grinning from ear to ear as he explained to us why this class would change the way we thought about science and learning generally (which it did). He took very complex problems at the frontier of biomedical sciences, material that was far over our heads at the time and still managed to show us how small parts of the larger problems were not only digestible topics for a first-year college student, but how they were also fun and interesting to learn in and of themselves. I was so captivated by his passion and mastery of the subject, and his ability to communicate it to us effectively, that at the end of the 90-minute class, I’d forgotten the worries that I’d brought into the classroom with me.
My first day teaching a small discussion seminar, I thought I'd be able to immediately animate a classroom the way my favorite professors had, and...I was very wrong! I assumed having a passion for teaching, a solid command of the content, and a clear vision for the class would be enough. I also assumed that students would be eager to jump in and lead discussion. What I didn't anticipate was how much harder the whole process is than it looks, on both ends. Some subject material and logical connections that seem obvious to the professor are not always obvious to their students. Likewise, on the end of the professor, there are also facets of the material that only become salient to them through the probing questions of their students. Luckily, good teaching and good learning is a skill that seems to instill itself in professors and students over the course of a class, and I think I’m getting closer and closer to my goal of emulating my favorite professors in how they animate a classroom.

A piece of advice for freshmen on how to best navigate university life

Slow down and try to make intentional choices about what to pursue academically and extracurricularly, always prioritizing undertaking things that enrich you personally and intellectually. 

What are your own expectations as you arrive at Bocconi?

Bocconi is the fourth university that I’ve been at as a student or professor, and I still feel excited about my first day of school! I’m going to try to follow my own advice by trying to take it all in, to be wise in what I choose to take on, and to prioritize my own learning and growth as a teacher and scholar along the way.

Paloma Lopez-Garcia has been appointed Director of the Institute for European Policymaking. She has dedicated her career to transforming economic research into tools to support European public policy. She joins Bocconi from the European Central Bank, where she served as an adviser in the Directorate General for Economics, following a career that spanned nearly twenty-five years at the ECB and the Banco de España. An economist with a PhD from the London School of Economics, where she studied under Nobel laureate Christopher Pissarides, she researches some of Europe’s key long-term challenges, including productivity, innovation, competitiveness, climate change, and technological transformation. Throughout her career, she has coordinated major European research networks focused on productivity and competitiveness, helping to strengthen the dialogue between economic research and policymaking.

Tell us about your first day at university as a student and then as a professor. An anecdote, a memory...

I remember my first day as a student with a feeling of a fresh start. New people, new topics, new life and a new me. It was exciting and also a bit scary

A piece of advice for freshmen on how to best navigate university life

The first one is to share as much as possible notes, knowledge, homework...with co-students. University life is much more pleasant and enriching when you join others to study and discuss. If I had not had so much fun doing the homework with my class friends, I would not have continued studying after the undergraduate to get a PhD.  My second piece of advice is to take any opportunity to study some months abroad. Visiting another university and getting to know other people and way of teaching and learning can change your life. It did change mine when I was given the opportunity to study one year in the USA.

What are your own expectations as you arrive at Bocconi?

I am excited to join such a vibrant and diverse community. I hope to learn from all of my colleagues and get to know new and interesting people. I also hope I can contribute to the community and do a good work.

To understand today’s inequalities, it is sometimes necessary to look back centuries. Felix Schaff joins Bocconi as an Associate Professor in the Department of Social and Political Sciences, where he earned his bachelor’s degree in International Management. He comes from Utrecht University (Netherlands), where he was a Research Fellow at the Sustainable Cooperation Center and the Economic & Social History Group, and from the European University Institute, where he served as a Max Weber Fellow and later as an Assistant Professor, after earning his PhD from the London School of Economics. His research intertwines economic history, political economy, and the study of institutions, tracing how religion, the distribution of wealth, and political transformations have influenced European economic development over the long term. Through the analysis of historical data, he offers new perspectives for understanding the roots of inequalities and differences in development among countries and regions.

Tell us about your first day at university as a student and then as a professor. An anecdote, a memory...

I still remember my first days as a student very well – in fact, they were here at Bocconi. I was excited, but certainly also a bit nervous. As a foreign student, I did not know many people and was unsure what to expect. What surprised me most was how easy the transition turned out to be. There was a strong sense that everyone was in the same situation, trying to find their way and discover what university life would be like. 
I was also struck by how helpful people were. I remember struggling with some of the material in my macroeconomics course. One day, a classmate came up to me and said: “I can see you're finding this difficult. Don't worry, I can help you with the material.” It was a small gesture, but it took away a lot of pressure and made me realize that Bocconi was not only an ambitious place, but also a collaborative and supportive one. 
As for my first days as a professor at Bocconi, ask me again in a few months! I am looking forward to creating new memories on the other side of the classroom.

A piece of advice for freshmen on how to best navigate university life

One thing I would encourage students to remember is that university is not something you do primarily for your parents, your teachers, or even a future employer. It is first and foremost an opportunity for you to be intellectually inspired, perhaps for a lifetime.
For that reason, I would pay close attention to the subjects that genuinely spark your curiosity and try to get the most out of them. Read, learn, ask questions, and enjoy the process. You may discover an interest that stays with you for the rest of your life.
At the same time, Bocconi offers an extraordinary range of opportunities. It is one of the most organised and dynamic universities I have ever experienced. But even in such an environment, students remain responsible for shaping their own journey. Think carefully about what kind of life you want to build. Perhaps you want to become a banker or a consultant. Or perhaps your talents and personality would make you happiest as a journalist, a teacher, a researcher, or someone working in development and public service.

What are your own expectations as you arrive at Bocconi?

Life is short. Try to choose a path that genuinely excites you.

Behind the resilience of supply chains lies a network of decisions involving companies, markets, and institutions. Aroon Narayanan, who joins Bocconi as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Management and Technology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he earned his PhD, studies precisely how these networks function. His research lies at the intersection of strategic management, industrial economics, and organizational theory, and analyzes how firms build efficient production relationships capable of withstanding economic shocks. His work contributes to our understanding of how to design more robust production systems in an increasingly interconnected global economy.

Tell us about your first day at university as a student and then as a professor. An anecdote, a memory...

First day as a student. My first day was at IIT Madras in 2012, and what stands out most is how new everything felt. I had spent the previous twelve years at the same school in Delhi, surrounded by the same teachers, the same friends, the same family, and the same routine. Showing up at university, far from home and knowing no one, felt strange and a little scary. It took months for me to settle in. Once I found my interests, my set of people, and a routine that worked, everything fell into place. So much so that leaving there many years later felt much harder than the first few months.
First day as a professor. I have not had that day yet. I will arrive at Bocconi next academic year. The closest I have come is as a TA at MIT, where every first class felt the same: a few dozen pairs of expectant eyes staring at me, waiting for me to say something. It is daunting, but it is also exciting in a way that is hard to describe. The pressure is what gives you the drive to say something useful and important.

A piece of advice for freshmen on how to best navigate university life

Two things, mostly from what I wish someone had told me at eighteen. First, ask the questions you think are stupid; in my experience, they are almost always the questions half the room wants to ask. Second, do at least one thing outside your degree: a club, a paper, a student union, a sport. I was heavily involved with my university's student newspaper and student governance, and I learned more there about writing, thinking, and speaking than I did in many of my courses.

What are your own expectations as you arrive at Bocconi?

Even as a Professor, I expect mostly to be a learner. The colleagues I have met so far have been generous with their time, and I am co-teaching a course on entrepreneurship and AI next year with someone who has been teaching the topic for far longer than I have. I expect to be a student in that room as much as a co-instructor, and I'll admit I'm looking forward to that part of it most.

From the energy transition to technological innovation, major economic transformations also depend on how capital is allocated. Lautaro Chittaro, who joins Bocconi (as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Finance) from Stanford University, where he earned his PhD, studies precisely the role of financial markets in these processes. His research combines finance, macroeconomics, and the economics of innovation to analyze the effects of public policies supporting businesses, the financing mechanisms for new technologies, and the investment incentives needed for more resilient and sustainable growth. His work offers new perspectives on the contribution of finance to major economic transformations.

Tell us about your first day at university as a student and then as a professor. An anecdote, a memory...

Thinking about my first day as a university student makes me realize how unexpected the paths of life can be. I started out studying History, but after taking several courses in economic history, I became increasingly drawn to Economics and eventually decided to change fields. I was the first person in my family to study Economics: I come from a family of doctors, lawyers, and architects, so I knew very little about the opportunities the discipline could offer. I had to discover them and learn along the way.

A piece of advice for freshmen on how to best navigate university life

My advice to incoming students would be to explore, to be willing to study new things, and to step outside their comfort zone. Ask questions, become genuinely interested in the subjects you encounter, and take advantage of the opportunity to meet new people and build groups with whom you can learn together. Every door in a university opens up a rich and fascinating world.

What are your own expectations as you arrive at Bocconi?

As I arrive at Bocconi University, I hope to contribute to the university environment by meeting motivated students and collaborating with colleagues and researchers who share similar interests.

Why do girls and boys make different educational choices? And to what extent do stereotypes and expectations shape their future? These are some of the questions at the heart of Michela Carlana’s research. She returns to Bocconi (Department of Economics) as an Associate Professor to lead the new INSPIRE research center, having previously served as an Associate Professor of Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School. Her research, at the intersection of the economics of education, labor economics, and public economics, demonstrates how educational policies can expand opportunities for future generations and reduce inequalities. Through field experiments and empirical analyses, she has contributed to the international debate on gender gaps in STEM fields, the integration of students with immigrant backgrounds, and the most effective tools for promoting social mobility.

Tell us about your first day at university as a student and then as a professor. An anecdote, a memory...

My first day at Bocconi as a student was during my PhD program. I felt very determined and eager to meet new people. That was the greatest gift Bocconi gave me: friends who helped me grow. It’s a memory that makes me realize how much a university is also a community that builds itself over time.
My first day as a professor felt like coming home: different, but not so far removed from my student days. There was excitement there too, a bit of nervousness, and the responsibility of stepping into the classroom with the ambition to inspire my students. I realized that teaching also meant giving back some of the enthusiasm and curiosity I had received as a student.

A piece of advice for freshmen on how to best navigate university life

A piece of advice for freshmen: don’t rush to have everything under control. College is also about trying new things, asking questions, making mistakes, and changing your perspective. Be curious, get involved, talk to your classmates and professors, and use your studies as an opportunity to figure out who you are and what truly interests you.

What are your own expectations as you arrive at Bocconi?

My expectations upon arriving at Bocconi are to become part of a very dynamic, international, and stimulating community, where research, teaching, and interaction with students can feed into one another.

How do people, businesses, and institutions adapt to a changing climate? This is the central question of Guglielmo Zappalà’s research. He joins Bocconi’s Department of Social and Political Sciences as an Associate Professor from the University of California, Santa Barbara—specifically the Environmental Markets Lab—and the University of California, Berkeley. A Ph.D. graduate of the Paris School of Economics, he studies the economic effects of climate change and the policies needed to help societies adapt to new environmental conditions. Using applied microeconomic methods, he analyzes the behavior of households and businesses in the face of climate risks, helping to develop tools to support the transition toward more resilient and sustainable economies.

Tell us about your first day at university as a student and then as a professor. An anecdote, a memory...

I’ve had more “first days” at university than I ever thought I would. I remember my very first one—as a freshman in my bachelor’s program—as a day made up more of feelings than of actual events: the feeling of not quite knowing where to look, and the energy of someone embarking on something big without yet fully grasping its scope. From there, many other first days followed: master’s, PhD, and postdoc, each with its own suitcase, its own transition, and its own inevitable yet pleasant struggle of starting from scratch.
The one at Bocconi will be my “first” first day in Italy in eleven years. I’m coming home, but this time from the other side of the lectern. And the excitement feels a lot like it did back then, with the same eagerness to get started.

A piece of advice for freshmen on how to best navigate university life

It may be hard at first, and that’s perfectly fine. It will be hard for different reasons for each of you: the pace, the subject matter, a new city, the sudden independence. For many of you, until just yesterday, the first day of the academic year simply meant seeing your longtime classmates again; now, however, everything is new. But this initial struggle is part of the journey—it’s not necessarily a sign that something is wrong.
My advice to you: don’t lose your heart, and try to embrace the challenge rather than just endure it. Remember that when it comes to making choices, there’s no right or wrong: there are many different goals and many different paths that lead to the same destination, and the only important thing is to have the courage to choose one and set out on it. Let your preferences and ambitions evolve over time, and make the most of the opportunities Bocconi puts before you. I say this as someone who, even today—on my first day as a professor—still feels anxiety and fear: I’ve simply learned to embrace them, because I know they’re normal and shouldn’t be fought. They’re part of starting something that truly matters to you.

What are your own expectations as you arrive at Bocconi?

I have many, and they’re all positive. I’m looking forward to working with curious and motivated students who have a genuine desire to learn and take on new challenges. I’m looking forward to working with extraordinary colleagues whom I’ve long admired from afar and from whom I hope to learn every day. I’m looking forward to a stimulating environment where ideas flow freely. And, of course, access to great food.

Generative artificial intelligence is not only changing the tools we use at work; it is transforming the way organizations collaborate, share knowledge, and make decisions. After a period of research at INSEAD in Singapore, Matteo Devigili joins Bocconi as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Management and Technology to study these very transformations. His work combines management, data science, and machine learning to analyze how new technologies influence work coordination, business organization, and digital communities. The goal is to understand how organizations can harness the potential of artificial intelligence without sacrificing people’s creativity and skills.

Tell us about your first day at university as a student and then as a professor. An anecdote, a memory...

I walked into my first math class, and my first thought was that I could finally choose to eat pizza every night. Today, as a teacher, I figure I can eat pizza at most once a week. The truth is, the constraints that daily life imposes on us change, but we always have the chance to pursue our dreams—even if it’s just once a week.

A piece of advice for freshmen on how to best navigate university life

Treat every exam as an opportunity to add a new lens to your perspective. The more lenses you have, the more you’ll be able to gain from your relationships, both professional and personal.

What are your own expectations as you arrive at Bocconi?

Immersing myself in a stimulating, international culture.

How do organizations change when data becomes a strategic resource? Philipp Reineke addresses this question by combining management, strategy, and data science. He joins Bocconi as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Management and Technology from Stanford University, where he earned his PhD, after working as a Research Associate at INSEAD. His research examines how companies can rethink organizational structures and decision-making processes in a context increasingly influenced by artificial intelligence and data analysis. His work offers new perspectives on how to design more flexible organizations capable of learning and adapting quickly to change.

Tell us about your first day at university as a student and then as a professor. An anecdote, a memory...

On my first day in my Bachelor, I arrived with a car full of things, most of which I didn't really need. On my first day as a professor, I will arrive with many more experiences and one piece of hand luggage. An anecdote, I hope, for how progress is often non-material. ;)

A piece of advice for freshmen on how to best navigate university life

The economist James March has argued that creating success in a company takes two things most people treat as opposites: exploration and depth. Surprisingly, the same seems true for creating success in many areas of life - the principles are useful for building careers, friendships, and relationships. As a student you have two jobs, roughly in order. First, explore widely and experiment: early on, almost any direction teaches you something, so breadth is cheap and wandering pays off. Then, choose one direction, commit, and go deep. Mastery comes from long, unglamorous hours, from doing the boring things others won't, and from building related skills whose pieces reinforce each other until what you can do is hard to copy.

This sounds simple but it isn't. It asks you first to face the fear of the unknown repeatedly, and then, just as you've overcome that fear and grown to enjoy the freedom of exploring, to give it all up and do similar things a thousand times. Harder still, knowing when to make the switch from breadth to depth is so difficult that people have written entire books about it. But form an instinct for when to explore broadly and when to commit deeply, and you're set for life - because none of us is ever done. In an ever-changing world, the things you mastered may stop being the things that matter. So, when the ground shifts, you must be willing to jump to new terrain and do it all over again.

What are your own expectations as you arrive at Bocconi?

Great colleagues, great students, and doing exciting things quickly (also, much better food than in the US)!

Networks are everywhere: from the Internet to transportation systems, all the way to relationships between people. Understanding their mathematical properties is the challenge driving the research of Nemanja Draganić, the new Assistant Professor in Bocconi’s Department of Computing Sciences, who comes fr , the University of Oxford, where he was a Postdoctoral Researcher and Principal Investigator of a fellowship from the Swiss National Science Foundation, following his Ph.D. at ETH Zurich. A specialist in graph theory and combinatorics, he develops new mathematical tools to tackle fundamental problems in theoretical computer science and discrete mathematics. His results, published in leading international journals in the field, contribute to the development of the theoretical foundations upon which numerous algorithms and computational models are based.

Tell us about your first day at university as a student and then as a professor. An anecdote, a memory...

I don't have a distinct memory of my very first day as a student; it completely merged into the blur of those first few weeks. But the overriding feeling of that period was a profound sense of independence. I was finally free to dive entirely into the subjects I loved, and was surrounded by like-minded people who wanted to do the same. Stepping into the classroom as a professor, you are on the other side of that dynamic. The responsibility now is to create the kind of environment where students can experience that same thrill of intellectual freedom and connection.

A piece of advice for freshmen on how to best navigate university life

Treat your work here seriously and make it a priority, it sets the intellectual and professional trajectory for your future. But remember that university is not just about solitary study. Talk to your peers, and talk a lot. Discuss your coursework, but also your hobbies, current events, and life in general. Build a broad network of people you can learn from and share experiences with, well beyond just your academic field. 

Do not be afraid to have your opinions challenged, and do not hesitate to challenge others; the university environment is designed for growth. However, stay rooted. Build upon the knowledge and values you brought with you, and remain skeptical of anyone who demands you discard your foundations entirely. Seek wisdom, care for what is good, and whenever you are in a position to do so, help others succeed. You will quickly find that helping others understand a difficult concept is one of the best ways to deepen your own understanding as well.

What are your own expectations as you arrive at Bocconi?

Since I am a newcomer too, my first expectation is that I will probably get lost in the hallways just as much as the freshmen. Professionally, I am excited to join a young, rapidly growing Computing Sciences department and collaborate with the fantastic researchers already here.  In the classroom, I expect to encounter students who aren't afraid to be a bit confused at first. In my field, being stuck is the default state of doing anything worthwhile. Freshmen often feel pressure to have all the right answers immediately, but I expect Bocconi to be a place where we can freely say 'I don't know,' so that we can roll up our sleeves and figure it out together.

Climate change is not just about the environment: it also affects people, their movements, their health, and the way societies transform. Raya Muttarak is on course to join the Department of Social and Political Sciences at Bocconi as from the University of Bologna’ , following an international career that has also seen her hold research and leadership roles at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA). As a demographer, she studies the relationships between population dynamics, sustainability, and climate change, analyzing issues such as migration, inequality, and adaptive capacity. She is the Principal Investigator of the ERC POPCLIMA project and a member of the UN High-level Advisory Board on Economic and Social Affairs, contributing to the global debate on policies for sustainable development.

Tell us about your first day at university as a student and then as a professor. An anecdote, a memory...

That mix of excitement and anxiety never really goes away. As a student, I remember how exciting it was to be somewhere new—but also how stressful it could be when I had no idea where the classrooms were and was hoping I wasn't about to walk into class late. 

As a professor, the feeling is surprisingly similar. Will the computer and projector work? How do I turn the lights on? How many students will actually show up? Walking into the classroom for the first time feels like stepping onto a stage: you want everything to go well, you want to make a good first impression, and you want the students in front of you to feel that this is worth their time. That opening moment matters, on both sides of the room.

A piece of advice for freshmen on how to best navigate university life

Come to class. It sounds obvious, but it's probably the single most important thing you can do. The professors here are not only outstanding teachers, they're also world-class researchers who put an incredible amount of thought into designing their courses, updating their materials, and bringing their experience into the classroom.

Being in a room with someone who is actively advancing their field and willing to share that knowledge with you is a rare opportunity. It's something that slides or recorded lectures simply can't replace. So show up, ask questions, join the conversation, and make the most of those moments.

What are your own expectations as you arrive at Bocconi?

To me, Bocconi is much more than a university—it's an international hub in the heart of northern Italy. It's a place where cutting-edge research meets real-world practice, where academia, the private sector, and public institutions come together to exchange ideas, and where innovation thrives in an environment that is rigorous, welcoming, and truly international.

That unique combination is what attracted me to Bocconi in the first place, and it's what continues to make it feel unlike anywhere else.

The only thing I'd add — A climbing wall in the Bocconi Sport Center. Then it would truly feel like home.

Why do some entrepreneurial ideas find support while others struggle to gain traction? Imge Kaya-Sabanci addresses this question by studying the role that stereotypes, biases, and social context play in entrepreneurial opportunities. She joins Bocconi’s Department of Management and Technology as an Adjunct Professor from IE Business School, where she earned her PhD. Her research explores gender inequalities in entrepreneurship and access to financing, integrating perspectives from management, psychology, and economics. Her work helps identify tools and policies to build more open and inclusive innovation ecosystems.

Tell us about your first day at university as a student and then as a professor. An anecdote, a memory...

On my first day as a university student, I remember feeling both very excited and slightly overwhelmed. It felt like the beginning of a completely new life. I was not completely sure where I was going, but I remember realizing that many others were feeling the same way, which made the experience feel more shared and welcoming.

My first day as a professor brought back some of those feelings. Arriving at Bocconi, I felt the same sense of beginning again: curiosity, responsibility, and gratitude. This time, instead of looking for my classroom as a student, I was preparing to welcome students into one. It made me reflect on the beautiful continuity of university life: first finding your own way and later accompanying others as they begin to find theirs.

A piece of advice for freshmen on how to best navigate university life

My advice is to use university as a time to discover not only what you want to do, but also who you want to become. Of course, courses, exams, and grades matter. But university is also a rare moment in life to ask bigger questions: What do I care about? What kind of problems do I want to work on? What excites me? What kind of impact do I want to have on others, on society, and perhaps even on the world?

Be curious. Ask questions. Meet people who are different from you. Try things even when you are not sure you will succeed. Do not be afraid to change your mind. Feeling lost sometimes is part of finding your way.

What are your own expectations as you arrive at Bocconi?

As I arrive at Bocconi, I hope to learn as much as I teach. I look forward to meeting students with different backgrounds, ambitions, and perspectives, and to contributing to an environment where ideas are discussed seriously and openly.

My expectation is to grow as a teacher, researcher, and member of the Bocconi community, while helping students feel supported as they begin their own journey here. I also hope to encourage them to develop not only knowledge and skills, but also a sense of responsibility, purpose, and courage to act on what they care about.

The spread of artificial intelligence is rapidly changing how digital markets operate, from online advertising to recommendation systems. Francesco Balocco joins the Bocconi Department of Marketing as an Assistant Professor from Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, where he was a Tenure-Track Assistant Professor, to study how these transformations affect businesses and consumers. A Bocconi graduate with a Ph.D. from the Rotterdam School of Management, he combines marketing, economics, data science, and machine learning to analyze the functioning of digital platforms, advertising auctions, and electronic markets. His goal is to understand how to design more efficient, transparent, and reliable digital ecosystems in an economy increasingly driven by data and algorithms.

Tell us about your first day at university as a student and then as a professor. An anecdote, a memory...

I don’t remember much about my first day as a student, but what I do remember clearly is the chaos—full of new experiences and excitement—of those first few weeks. I remember the feeling that the world had suddenly opened up. I remember making friends with people from all over Italy, and as a commuter from a small town in the province of Monza, I found myself getting a taste of life away from home by staying up late to “study” with my classmates. One of us had an apartment on Via Röntgen, right across from what would become the Grafton Building, so his place had become our makeshift library. I remember we all studied for the business economics exam together, and I’m still grateful to the girls, who had the best notes. We all got good grades, but then we still went together to the grading session to try to negotiate half a point more. 

My first day as a professor came and went without me even noticing. Since my work was more or less the same as it had been during my PhD, the change wasn’t immediately obvious. I didn’t realize it until months later, when I saw “Faculty” printed on my name tag at a conference instead of “Student.” To be honest, it’s still one of those things I don’t quite grasp yet. My job—and what I love to do—is learning new things, and that’s been the case ever since my first day at university.

A piece of advice for freshmen on how to best navigate university life

One of the greatest opportunities college offers us is the chance to be surrounded by highly talented people who are going through the same stage of life. Make as many friends as you can, and the world will open up before your eyes!

What are your own expectations as you arrive at Bocconi?

Bocconi has always been a place of great inspiration and energy for me. Just like when I started my bachelor’s degree at Bocconi, returning to the other side of the classroom gives me the same boost of energy. I can’t wait to work with the same colleagues in the Marketing Department whom I admired as a student, and to immerse myself in research with some of the most talented people in the world. See you in class in September, everyone!

The best decisions often arise from the intersection of human capabilities and digital tools. Sebastian Niederberger dedicates his research to understanding how to design organizations capable of integrating these two elements. He joins the ION Management Science Lab at SDA Bocconi from ETH Zurich, following his degree in Business Administration and Economics from the University of Zurich. Using computational methods, experiments, and data analysis, he studies decision-making processes, collective intelligence, and the role of artificial intelligence in organizations, contributing to the development of more effective models for addressing complex problems.

Tell us about your first day at university as a student and then as a professor. An anecdote, a memory...

What I remember from my first day as a student is the surprise of suddenly being surrounded by people who cared about the same questions I did. Until then, my interest in business and economics was something I mostly pursued on my own; now the whole room shared it, and everything, from the lectures to the lunch conversations, was about learning. My first day as a professor was the mirror image: I stood in front of a room like that and my job was no longer to absorb, but to translate, to turn years of research into words that make sense to someone meeting these ideas for the first time.

A piece of advice for freshmen on how to best navigate university life

Talk to your professors. Not just when something goes wrong, but when something makes you curious; ask where an idea comes from, what we still don't know about it. Most of us chose this job because we like exactly those conversations, and they are the part of university you cannot get from slides or textbooks.

What are your own expectations as you arrive at Bocconi?

I study how people and firms make decisions under uncertainty, and starting somewhere new is a nice reminder of what that feels like from the inside. I expect to learn a lot: from colleagues whose work I have long admired, and from students who ask the questions nobody in the field thinks to ask anymore.

Innovative organizations are not necessarily those that generate the most ideas, but those that know how to recognize the best ones. This insight forms the starting point for the research of Johanna Schnier, the new Assistant Professor in the Department of Management and Technology at Bocconi University, who joined from Copenhagen Business School after earning her Ph.D. from Kühne Logistics University in Hamburg. Her research explores how individuals and groups generate, evaluate, and develop new ideas, analyzing the mechanisms that influence creativity, judgment, and collective decision-making. Through experimental and behavioral approaches, she contributes to our understanding of how to design organizations that are better able to innovate and transform promising insights into concrete results.

Tell us about your first day at university as a student and then as a professor. An anecdote, a memory...

I was intimidated and very excited at the same time. So many new people, so many things I had never heard about before.

A piece of advice for freshmen on how to best navigate university life

Don’t focus too much on grades and “being done” with a course. Enroll in those courses that you are most interested in, and (sometimes) also in courses that are outside of your main focus area.

What are your own expectations as you arrive at Bocconi?

I expect to be intimidated and very excited at the same time—just as I was on my first day at university.

People are an organization’s most important resource, but understanding how to attract, develop, and retain talent is far from a simple challenge. After serving as an Assistant Professor at the Frankfurt School of Finance & Management, Halil Sabanci joins the Department of Management and Technology at Bocconi University in the same capacity to explore these issues in greater depth. His research analyzes career development, professional networks, and inequalities in the labor market, demonstrating how organizations can create more inclusive environments and maximize the value of human capital. Through the analysis of large databases, he helps shed light on the factors that influence opportunities, performance, and career mobility.

Tell us about your first day at university as a student and then as a professor. An anecdote, a memory...

On my first day as a student, I remember sitting in a large lecture hall and assuming that the primary conversation in the room was the one between the professor and me. Later, on my first day as a professor, I realized how different the geometry of the room looks from the other side. You see many other conversations happening at once: students building on each other's points, disagreeing, offering angles you had not considered. In fact, the real intellectual stimulation often comes from observing how students interact with one another and with the professor, how an idea travels across the room and returns transformed. That is still what makes teaching exciting for me. I go there to learn from the students and from the way ideas move around the room as much as to teach.

A piece of advice for freshmen on how to best navigate university life

I usually begin my leadership courses by telling students that almost every important question in class has the same correct answer: it depends. Is it better for a leader to be loved or feared? It depends on the people, the context, the task, the organization, and also on the leader. University is the best place to train that muscle. Resist the comfort of a single right answer. Learn to weigh the alternatives, understand tradeoffs, and live with complexity.

My second piece of advice is to invest in your relationships with your friends, peers, professors, managers, and subordinates. I have taught power and influence to audiences ranging from students to senior executives, and one lesson holds across all groups: the most reliable source of power is relational. You can polish your charisma and your credentials (personal power), and a title may one day grant you positional power, but relationships are the one asset where there is always room to grow. And you will see that the two pieces of advice are connected, because genuinely understanding different alternatives and different takes is precisely what helps you create these bonds. This does not mean treating friendships instrumentally. It means recognizing how much people matter. The relationships you build at university will help you grow intellectually and personally, and they will also make these years much more enjoyable.

What are your own expectations as you arrive at Bocconi?

Above all, I am looking forward to becoming part of the Bocconi community. I became an academic because I enjoy studying questions that genuinely fascinate me, such as why people move between careers and what they work for beyond money. Much of my research uses millions of data points from around the world, statistical tools, and the math behind labor markets at large. However, the ideas behind it often begin with observing real people, real choices, and real organizations before I abstract from that reality to produce research papers.

A university is exactly the kind of place where those observations become richer, through conversations with colleagues, students, and practitioners. My hope is to contribute to the intellectual life of Bocconi, and to be inspired by it in return.

Stefania Cirillo studies how to make civil justice more effective without compromising due process guarantees. She joined Bocconi from New York University School of Law, where she was a Hauser Global Fellow, after earning her PhD with honors in Legal Studies from Bocconi and completing research fellowships at the Max Planck Institute Luxembourg for Procedural Law and the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies at the University of London. Her academic work focuses on civil procedural law, consensual justice, and dispute resolution from a comparative perspective, analyzing how legal systems can promote faster and more effective access to justice. In recent years, she has expanded her research to include climate litigation and the impact of artificial intelligence on civil proceedings, contributing to the international debate on the evolution of justice in an increasingly global and technological context.