Suzhou Office staff
Mauro Cannone
Mauro Cannone is the Director of the International Office at Ca’ Foscari University. After obtaining his degree in the language and culture of China in Venice, he worked in China for almost four years. He then received his doctorate in geography from Royal Holloway, University of London, and worked as a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Florence. In his current role, he is responsible for setting up and managing international branding and promotional activities, including the Ca’ Foscari University Offices in the World, as well as liaising with international ranking agencies with the aim of improving the university’s global reputation.
Zhu Yi – Onsite office manager
Zhu Yi studied Italian language and culture at Nanjing Normal University and then completed a master’s degree in the same field at Ca’ Foscari University. Since 2014 she has been working for Ca’ Foscari in the International Engagement Office, helping to promote the university in China. She has also collaborated on numerous cultural events organized at Ca’ Foscari in conjunction with various Chinese institutions, including the Dunhuang Academy and the Dunhuang Culture Promotion Foundation.
Research collaborators
Language and culture
Tiziana Lippiello
Tiziana Lippiello is a full professor of classical Chinese and the religions and philosophy of China in the Department of Asian and North African Studies and is also currently Rector of Ca’ Foscari University. After obtaining her master’s degree at Ca’ Foscari she carried out her doctoral studies at Leiden University. One of her most recent projects was the organization of an exhibition of art from the caves at Dunhuang in Venice at Ca' Foscari, and she is currently working on many other collaborative projects with Chinese colleagues, especially Prof. Zhang Xiaohong 张晓宏, with whom she is overseeing “Venice and Suzhou: Two Cities, Three Bridges”, the joint research effort being carried out through the Ca’ Foscari University Suzhou Office.
Sabrina Rastelli
Sabrina Rastelli holds a degree in Chinese language and culture from Ca’ Foscari University and a doctorate in Chinese art and archaeology from SOAS. She has been teaching Chinese art and archaeology at Ca’ Foscari since 1999, and has also taught at Peking University and Hanoi University. Her research focuses on Chinese ceramics, especially the reconstruction of how they were made through the study of archaeological remains and the use of lab analyses. She has curated or co-curated several important exhibitions on ancient Chinese art at the Scuderie del Quirinale and the Palazzo Venezia in Rome, the Palazzo Strozzi in Florence, and the Palazzo Reale in Milan. Her latest publication (the first of two volumes) is Arte cinese: Dalle origini alla dinastia Tang (Turin: Einaudi, 2016).
Guido Samarani
Guido Samarani is a full professor in the Department of Asian and North African Studies at Ca’ Foscari University, where he teaches the history of China and the history and institutions of East Asia. He is the Director of the Marco Polo Centre for Global Europe–Asia Connections, a guest professor at the Research Center for the Study of China’s Modern and Contemporary History at Zhejiang University in China, and a member of the editorial board of various national and international journals. In recent years some of his many publications include the volume La Cina contemporanea (Turin: Einaudi, 2017) and the co-edited volumes Roads to Reconciliation: People’s Republic of China, Western Europe and Italy during the Cold War Period (1949–1971) (Venice: Edizioni Ca’ Foscari, 2018) and Chiang Kai-shek and His Time: New Historical and Historiographical Perspectives (Venice: Edizioni Ca’ Foscari, 2017), as well as the special issue “Essays from the International Symposium on Italy–Europe and China during the Cold War Years” published in Chinese in Lengzhan guojishi yanjiu (Cold War International History Studies; vols. 19/20, Summer/Winter 2015, pp. 1–118).
Francesco Vallerani
Francesco Vallerani obtained his doctorate in historical geography from Pavia University and is a full professor in the Department of Economics at Ca' Foscari University. As a cultural geographer, he is interested in the geo-historical evolution of the relationship between human activities and the environment. His research focuses principally on water landscapes (both fluvial and lagoon), rural landscapes, wine tourism, and ecotourism in fragile environments. He is also interested in European modernism and man-made waterways such as the Canal du Midi, the Canal de Castilla, the Oxford Union Canal and Göta Kanal.
Laura De Giorgi
Laura De Giorgi is a full professor of the history of modern and contemporary China in the Department of Asian and North African Studies at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice. She graduated from Ca' Foscari University with a degree in Chinese language and literature in 1991 and obtained her doctorare in the history of modern and contemporary Asia from the University of Cagliari in 1997. Her research principally focuses on the history of journalism and the media in modern and contemporary China as well as on modern and contemporary Chinese urban society and the history of Sino-Italian relations in the late-19th and 20th centuries, especially with regard to the development of cultural relations, the role of the Italian community in China and the image of China in Italy and of Italy in China. She has published six monographs in Italian on Chinese modern and contemporary history and several peer-reviewed articles in international scholarly journals and books. She is also a member of the editorial boards of several Italian academic journals and of the board of the Italian Association of Chinese Studies.
Wang Yao
Wang Yao is a professor in the School of Humanities and director of the academic board of Soochow University. He is a recipient of the Changjiang Scholar award assigned by the Chinese Ministry of Education. His research focuses on contemporary Chinese literature, thought and culture, the literature of the Cultural Revolution, and contemporary Chinese prose. Some of his numerous books include a history of Contemporary Chinese prose and a volume on the rhetoric of Sixiang shijian.
Management and business
Tiziano Vescovi
Tiziano Vescovi is a full professor of business management and member of the Academic Senate at Ca’ Foscari University. He is also co-director of the International Management to Asia Laboratory (IMA Lab), which involved the collaboration of scholars from 11 different universities. In addition, he is the director of the Master in Client Advisor Service Ca’ Foscari-LVMH and academic director of the Italian Booksellers Management School, Rome. From 2015 to 2017, he was dean of the Interdepartmental School of Asian Studies and Business Management. Prof. Vescovi’s research focuses on international management and international marketing, especially in relation to countries in the Far East. He has been a visiting professor at universities in the United States, France, Belgium, Ireland and China, and he has taught marketing and international management in a range of Italian, European, American and Chinese business schools. He has written books and many articles on international management and marketing topics, and for many years he was also a strategic marketing consultant for Italian companies.
Rui Yang
Rui Yang in an associate professor specializing in industrial economics at Soochow University. His research interests including creativity in and the management of innovation and social networks, business innovation and industrial development.
Xiang Peng
Xiang Peng is a professor at the Business School of Soochow University. Her main area of research is innovation in business and industrial politics, and she has published over ten articles in this field.
Jing Lee
Jing Lee is an associate professor at the Business School of Soochow University. Her work focuses on entrepreneurship and strategic management.
Liang Liu
Liang Liu is an associate professor at the Business School of Soochow University. He in interested in social policy, particularly with regard to the politics of the world of finance. He knows Suzhou very well, and has witnessed its transformation from a small city into an industrial metropolis.
Xi Chen
Xi Chen is a doctoral student in the Department of Electronic at the University of York in the UK. She holds a master’s degree in finance management and another in computer engineering. Before beginning her doctoral work, she was a full-time professor teaching courses on e-commerce and filled the role of director of the office of e-commerce teaching and research. Her work focuses on business innovation and entrepreneurship.
Water science and technology
Antonio Marcomini
Antonio Marcomini is a full professor of environmental chemistry and Vice Rector of Ca’ Foscari. He has more than 30 years of experience in the field of environmental chemistry, and hi research has focused especially on pollution chemistry, environmental impact and risk assessment and management, the transport and fate of chemicals and materials (especially engineered nanoparticles) both today and in the future that climate change will create. He has authored and co-authored more than 280 papers and he has a Google Scholar h-index of 59.
Qingfeng Xu
Qingfeng Xu is a the doctoral supervisor of the College of Chemistry, Chemical Engineering & Materials Science at Soochow University. She was the primary researcher for projects that won National Natural Science Foundation prizes and two Jiangsu Provincial prizes from the Natural Sciences Foundation, and she is heading up an important project for addressing environmental protection for Jiangsu Province. She is also the co-investigator for three National Natural Science Foundation awards and for a national program focusing on R&D in advanced technology. Since 2006 she has published 40 articles in renowned journals as first author.
Najun Li
Najun Li is a professor and master’s thesis supervisor of the College of Chemistry, Chemical Engineering & Materials Science at Soochow University. Since 2001 she has published more than 110 articles in prominent journals, for 36 of which she was the first author. She has applied for one patent in the US and three in China, where she has already obtained others. She was the principal investigator for eight projects that have received national or provincial Natural Science Foundation Awards, and she is co-investigator for a number of key national development programs. She has also received nine awards at the international, provincial and municipal levels, including the Second Class Technological Invention Award.
Hua Li
Hua Li is a professor in the College of Chemistry, Chemical Engineering & Materials Science at Soochow University. He is interested in the design, synthesis and development of n-nary organic information storage materials, and of environmentally respectful absorbent materials for the treatment of organic waste water. He has participated in 15 research projects, including, as a principal investigator, two that received a National Natural Science Foundation Award, and one key provincial program for technology R&D. He has also been a co-investigator for a key national technology R&D program, a key program of the National Natural Science Foundation and a national R&D program dedicated to advanced technology.
Jinghui He
Jinghue He is an associate professor and master’s thesis supervisor in the College of Chemistry, Chemical Engineering & Materials Science at Soochow University. To date, he has published eight articles in premier journals and has over 200 citations. His research interests include the chemistry of surfaces, gas sensors and mechanism of organic electronic memory devices.
Dongyun Chen
Dongyun Chen is an associate professor in the College of Chemistry, Chemical Engineering & Materials Science at Soochow University. His research focuses on micro-nano composite functional materials for the treatment of industrial waste water and gases as well as techniques for addressing ground pollution. He has published in a number of prominent scientific journals. His doctorate was funded by the Outstanding Doctoral Thesis Key Project of Soochow University. In 2012 he received a Soochow University Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation Award, and in 2013, a Jiangsu Province Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation Award. He is currently the primary researcher for four different projects, including National Natural Science Foundation and Suzhou Nano Research ones.
Jianmei Lu
Jianmei Lu is Vice President of Soochow University. Her research focuses on nanomaterials and their role in water management science.
Venice-Suzhou photography exhibit
Tiziana Lippiello
Tiziana Lippiello is a full professor of classical Chinese and the religions and philosophy of China in the Department of Asian and North African Studies and is also currently Rector of Ca’ Foscari University. After obtaining her master’s degree at Ca’ Foscari she carried out her doctoral studies at Leiden University. One of her most recent projects was the organization of an exhibition of art from the caves at Dunhuang in Venice at Ca' Foscari, and she is currently working on many other collaborative projects with Chinese colleagues, especially Prof. Zhang Xiaohong 张晓宏, with whom she is overseeing “Venice and Suzhou: Two Cities, Three Bridges”, the joint research effort being carried out through the Ca’ Foscari University Suzhou Office.
Wang Weiping
Wang Weiping is a professor of history as well as the doctoral supervisor and director of the School of Social Sciences at Soochow University. He mainly studies the history of Chinese cities and the social and general history of the Jiangnan region.
Mu Xiaoyong
Mu Xiaoyong is a professor, doctoral advisor and the director of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at Soochow University. He specializes in basic physical-education, higher-education and teacher-education theory.
Wang Hao
Wang Hao obtained his doctorate in historical geography and is currently an associate professor in the Department of History in the School of Social Sciences at Soochow University. His research interests include regional historical geography and environmental history.
Zhan Jingmei
Zhang Jingmei has a doctoral degree in history and is an associate professor in the School of Social Sciences at Soochow University. Her works focuses mainly on the study of Western historiography and the history of the Renaissance.
Zhang La'e
Zhang La’e has a master’s degree in economics and is an associate professor at the Dongwu Business School of Soochow University. Her research interests include regional and industrial economics.