Academic biography

Paola Rivetti is Associate Professor in Politics and International Relations at the School of Law and Government. She joined DCU in 2011, as an IRC postdoctoral fellow. She researches the government of societies and polities in the Middle East and North Africa from a comparative perspective; social and political mobilizations; gender and politics. She is author of Political Participation in Iran from Khatami to the Green Movement (2020), which she presented in numerous universities across Europe, North America and the Middle East; and co-editor of Islamists and the Politics of the Arab Uprisings: Governance, Pluralisation and Contention (2018), Continuity and Change Before and After the Arab Uprisings. Morocco, Tunisia and Egypt (2015) and Effetto società civile. Pratiche e retoriche in Iran, Libano, Egitto e Marocco (2010).

Paola Rivetti was awarded the 2018 Early-Career Researcher of the Year Prize by the Irish Research Council and received the DCU President's Award for Early-Career Researcher. In 2018, she was a TED talk speaker for Trinity College Dublin, with a talk titled What's wrong with solidarity. 

As an academic and intellectual, she contributes to public debates and is involved in a number of cultural and professional initiatives. Paola Rivetti is a Council member of the British Society for Middle Eastern Studies, a member of the Mentorship Committee of the Association for Iranian Studies, and of the Committe for Academic Freedom of the Italian Society for Middle East Studies (SeSaMO). She is a co-founding member of the