Get to Know Maristella Botticini. Through the Internet
A collection of people diverse in terms of scientific interests, but equally committed to and passionate for research. A team of scholars who think and work as a group. That's the message that the new head image of the IGIER website, a patchwork of the scholars' faces, intends to transmit and it's the vision of Maristella Botticini, director of the Innocenzo Gasparini Institute for Economic Research since January 2011.
"It's thanks to the long-term vision of Francesco Giavazzi and Mario Monti who established IGIER two decades ago, and the leadership of the scholars who ran the research center over the years (Francesco Giavazzi, Guido Tabellini, Roberto Perotti, and Carlo Favero) and the scholarship and dedication of its affiliates and fellows that IGIER has gained an international recognition and standing within the academic community," says Botticini.
In October 2008 IGIER joined the rest of Università Bocconi in the new bustling Roentgen Building after 18 years of physical detachment, first at the Mirasole Abbey and then in via Salasco. Botticini has now underlined this integration by conforming the website to Bocconi's graphic style without surrendering a few touches which emphasize the strong identity of the research centre.
"We insert all the information we consider most exciting into the 'on focus' menu", Botticini explains. First, the research synergies and interactions among the departments, with a junior job market seminars section which highlights the commitment of all Bocconi's departments to hire on the international academic job market. Then the new IGIER seminar series, only one seminar per month but with top scholars from all over the world talking on topics which can spark any scholar's interest. All of us are committed to participating. The seminar series has kicked off in January with an impressive seminar by Alvin Roth from Harvard who talked about 'Kidney Exchange'; the bottom line of his talk can be summarized in 'theorems save lives'".
The power of attraction of IGIER is testified by the following three items in the 'on focus'menu: the anniversary conference (this year IGIER turns 20!) with 12 dream speakers, the description of the projects which enabled four IGIER fellows to secure the prestigious ERC grants, and the Deutsche Bank Chair in Quantitative Finance and Asset Pricing, awarded to the IGIER president, Carlo Favero.
The last two items of the menu (the interviews) are a real Botticini's touch, devoted as they are to better know the IGIER scholars and their motivations via short, light-hearted interviews.
A Bocconi graduate in economics, Botticini earned her PhD in 1997 at Northwestern University, which she entered as a prospective microeconomist and exited as an economic historian thanks to the exciting course of Joel Mokyr, "whose enthusiasm for economic history is like an infectious disease", she says.
She taught at Boston University from 1997 until 2005. During her career in the United States, she received both an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship and a CAREER NSF grant awarded by the National Science Foundation "to recognize and support the early career-development activities of teacher-scholars who are most likely to become the academic leaders of the 21st century". In November 2009 she joined Bocconi, where she is now professor of economics.
Her next project for IGIER is a deeper involvement of the students in the life of the center. "Bocconi is endowed with wonderful students, who have contributed over the years to the international reputation of the University. Here at IGIER we are thinking of different ways to get the students more involved with our scientific activities; we always find surprisingly enriching the contact with the best and most motivated students".