Visiting Scholar
Ca' Foscari University of Venice

Valentina Ciciliot is Associate Professor of the History of Christianity at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, Italy. She was a Marie Skłodowska-Curie postdoctoral fellow at the University of Notre Dame (Indiana, USA) between 2016 and 2018. She holds a B.A. (2005) in History from Ca’ Foscari University of Venice and an M.A. in Religious Studies (2008) from the University of Padua and Ca’ Foscari University of Venice. In 2013, she obtained a Ph.D. in Italian Studies from the University of Reading (UK). Her research has a particular focus on Catholicism in the USA, charismatic movements, and the role of women within the Catholic Church. Among several publications, she is the author of Donne sugli altari. Le canonizzazioni femminili di Giovanni Paolo II (Viella 2018), which examines John Paul II’s canonisation strategy and broadly the use of sanctity in the modern papal magisterium. Her current research aims to investigate the relationship between Christianity and ecology. During her stay at the Department of the Study of Religions in the summer semester 2026, she teaches a course on "Christianity in the USA."