Tommaso Virgili

Tommaso Virgili is a Martens Centre Research Associate. Prior to this, he was a Martens Centre Visiting Fellow. His main areas of expertise are Islam, radicalisation, individual liberties, and integration of migrants. He was previously a Programme Director at the European Foundation for Democracy, a Brussels-based think tank devoted to prevention of radicalisation, where he remains a Visiting Fellow. He also held posts at the European External Action Service (covering Egypt, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan), at the Philadelphia-based Middle East Forum think tank, and at the Italian Permanent Mission to the United Nations in New York.

Tommaso holds a Ph.D. from the Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies in Pisa, focused on Islam and individual liberties in the Constitutions of Egypt and Tunisia. He previously obtained a Master of Arts in Middle East, Islamic Studies and Arabic at the American University of Paris and Cairo, and a Master’s Degree in Law at Sant’Anna School in Pisa. In addition to his native Italian, Tommaso speaks fluent English and French, and intermediate Spanish and Arabic.