Maria Sassi, PhD in agricultural economics, is an Associate Professor at the Department of Economics and Management, University of Pavia, Italy, where she teaches Food Economics and Agricultural Development and Quantitative Policy Analysis for Development. She is a local director of the Erasmus Mundus Joint Master’s Degree in Global Development Policy and a member of the Technical Board of the Master programme in Cooperation and Development.

She is the Country Representative of the European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes and vice-president of the Commission for International Cooperation and Development of the University of Pavia. She is an Expert in the Technical Assistance and Information Exchange instrument of the European Commission.

She participated in several international research projects supported by the European Union, the Italian Government and International Organizations, such as the FAO and the UNDP, mainly focusing on food security issues in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Among them, there are:

- 2022- Partner - Agricoltura sostenibile come veicolo per promuovere la sicurezza alimentare, l'empowerment femminile e lo sviluppo socioeconomico – AGREE, AID 012590/06/7, Project supported by AICS (Italian Agency for Development Cooperation) and coordinated by VIDES (3 year project).

- 2020 Partner “Strengthening Agri-Entrepreneurship and Community Engagement Training in East, West and North Africa (AgriENGAGE)” - ERASMUS+ Key action 2.

- 2019 Partner “Innovative learning and co-creation of teaching methodology for scaling entrepreneurship in food and agribusiness in SSA (AgriSCALE)”. ERASMUS+ Key Action 2 (36 months)

She has published articles in international journals on a variety of topics related to food security and agricultural development, mainly focused on the African context:  Economic and Health Determinants of Child Nutritional Status; Impact of Climate Change on Cereal Market and Food Security; Commodity Food Prices; Food price volatility; and Global crisis and agricultural public spending.

The publications of the last three years are:

- Javadi A., Ghahremanzadeh M., Sassi M., Javanbakht O., Hayati B. (2022). Economic evaluation of the climate changes on food security in Iran: application of CGE model. Theoretical and Applied Climatology. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-022-04289-w

- Sassi M., Trital G. (2022). COVID-19 income and price shocks effect on household food access in Malawi. European Review of Agricultural Economics Vol 00 (00), pp. 1–22 doi:https://doi.org/10.1093/erae/jbac008.

- Sassi M. (2022). Determinants of Household Nutrition Security in Countries in Protracted Crisis: Evidence from South Sudan. Sustainability 14, 4793. https://doi.org/10.3390/su14084793

- Pastolero A., Sassi M. (2022). Food loss and waste accounting: the case of the Philippine food supply chain. Bio-based and Applied Economics 11(3): 207-218. doi: 10.36253/bae-11501.

- Aweke C.S., Sassi M., Lahiff E., Wordofa M.G. (2022). Seasonality and food security among smallholder rural households in eastern Ethiopia: Evidence from panel data analysis. Cogent Economics & Finance 10:1, 2035492, DOI: 10.1080/23322039.2022.2035492

- Sassi M., Thakare H. (2022). Conflict and Child Malnutrition: a Systematic Review of the Emerging Quantitative Literature. Current Nutrition Reports vol 4, https://doi.org/10.1007/s13668-021-00386-w.

- Gelal A., Sassi, M. (2021), Exploring environment as cross-cutting issue among humanitarian-development nexus actors. American Journal of Agricultural Science, Engineering and Technology. DOI:https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5442907

- Sassi M. (2021). Coping Strategies of Food Insecure Households in Conflict Areas: The Case of South Sudan. Sustainability 13, 8615. https://doi.org/10.3390/su13158615.

- Sassi M., Trital G. (2021). A latent growth curve modelling approach to seasonal and spatial dynamics of food security heterogeneities in rural Lake Naivasha Basin, Kenya. Food Security. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12571-021-01200-9.

- Sassi M., Trital G., Bhattacharjee P. (2021). Beyond the Annual and Aggregate Measurement of Household Inequality: The Case Study of Lake Naivasha Basin, Kenya. European Journal of Development Research. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41287-021-00380-6

- Bhattacharjee P., Sassi M. (2021). Determinants of the severity of household food insecurity among the slums of Dhaka city, Bangladesh. International Journal of Urban Sustainable Development 13:2, 233-247, DOI: 10.1080/19463138.2020.1868475

- Sassi M. (2020). A SEM Approach to the Direct and Indirect Links between WaSH Services and Access to Food in Countries in Protracted Crises: The Case of Western Bahr-el-Ghazal State, South Sudan. Sustainability 12, 9631.

- Wordofa M.G., Sassi M. (2020). Impact of agricultural interventions on food and nutrition security in Ethiopia: Uncovering pathways linking agriculture to improved nutrition. Cogent Food & Agriculture 6, 1-21, https://doi.org/10.1080/23311932.2020.1724386.

- Aweke C.S., Sassi M., Lahiff E., Wordofa M.G. (2020). Seasonality and food security among smallholder rural households in eastern Ethiopia: evidence from panel data analysis. Research Square. DOI: 10.21203/rs.2.24593/v1.