My academic pathway has not always been linear: a graduate of the Collegio Superiore University of Bologna, I obtained my Master’s degree in Medical Biotechnology in 2006 with an experimental thesis in gene therapy at the International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology in Triest, under the supervision of Giovanna Cenacchi (University of Bologna), Lorena Zentilin and Mauro Giacca (ICGEB). I then decided to leave the molecular biology bench to train in philosophy of life sciences and ethics in a newly inaugurated (at that time) PhD programme called “Foundations of Life Sciences and Ethics” (Folsatec), a collaboration of the European School of Molecular Medicine and the University of Milano.
I defended my PhD viva in October 2010, with an empirical ethics dissertation investigating the ethical issues of Phase 0 trials in oncology (supervised by Proff Giovanni Boniolo and Gordon McVie).
In October 2010 I also embarked on a new PhD programme in Philosophy of Medicine at King’s College London, funded by a Wellcome Trust fellowship and supervised by Matteo Mameli and David Papineau.
For the 2011/2012 academic year I was a visiting fellow at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences (formerly known as “Department of Anthropology, History and Social Medicine” or DASHM) at University of California, San Francisco, where I worked with Professor Dorothy Porter and Brian Dolan on ethical issues of gene therapy applied to a variety of settings. I defended my PhD in October 2013 with a thesis titled “From bench to bedside, to track and field: the context of enhancement and its ethical relevance”, which became a book published with UC Medical Humanities Press in 2014.
In October 2013 I successfully applied for a three-year fixed term Lecturer position in Bioethics & Society in the newly established – at that time – department of Social Science, Health and Medicine at King’s College London, chair by the sociologist Nik Rose, who had the vision to launch the first Bioethics & Society programme grounded in social sciences approach and department in the UK. I had the privilege of directing the programme for close to 9 years, with short periods of interruptions due to parental leave. After an accelerated probationary period my position was converted to an open-ended Lecturership position in May 2015. In June 2018 I was promoted to Senior Lecturer and in September 2021 to Reader.
In September 2022, I took the decision to resign from King’s College London. It wasn’t an easy decision however the working conditions had changed for European scholars working in UK academia since Brexit, my department had also shifted its focus away from bioethics towards global health, and it was time for me to leave the UK.
From October 2022 to October 2023, I served as a Senior Research Fellow (Solidarity Fellow) in the Centre for the Study of Contemporary Solidarity at the University of Vienna, where I focused on doing research at the intersection of public health ethics and public policy.
In October 2023, I accepted a 1-year research fellowship position at the University of Bologna working with Raffaella Campaner, Francesco Bianchini and Francesco Guala, on an Italian Ministry of Research funded project on “normative kinds“. In this new role I am enjoying investigating new topics in the philosophy of medicine and science, and enjoying a freedom of doing research.
For the 2023/24 academic year I also hold the position Visiting Professor, Sowerby Project Philosophy of Medicine, Department of Philosophy, King’s College London.
I don’t know what’s going to be my next step, but if you’re reading me and are a PhD student or a junior scholar just starting out in academia, here’s one thing I have learnt form this journey thus far: career pathways and trajectories are often not linear or straightforward, nor are life pathways.
If I have learnt something along the way, is the following: the most important thing is the people you encounter in your trajectory, the connections you make along the way, the network you create.
Keep close to you the people you meet along the ways, the junior and senior colleagues, the students, the admin support staff, the people who serve you coffee at the university café. People are more important than institutions.
Prof. Silvia Camporesi 