Maria Rita Testa

Maria Rita Testa joined Luiss University Guido Carli as Associate Professor in Demography in October 2020. She previously held positions at the Vienna Institute of Demography of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (senior researcher), and the Vienna University of Economics and Business (adjunct professor).

She has been Senior Fellow at the European University Institute, Fernand Braudel Program, Scientific board member of the European Doctoral School of Demography and adjunct professor at Lumsa University (Libera Università degli Studi Maria Ss. Assunta), Pontifical Gregorian University, and Sapienza University.

She received her doctorate in Demography from University of Florence (2002) and the habilitation in Demography and Social Statistics from the Vienna University of Economics and Business (2016) and from the Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research (Abilitazione Scientifica Nazionale, Professore di I e II Fascia) (2018).

Her research interests include reproductive decision-making, family, fertility, environmental change, social sustainability, life course analysis, and panel/multilevel data analysis.

Among others, her research findings have been published in Population and Development Review, European Journal of Population, Demographic Research, Population Research and Policy Review, and Population and Environment.

She has won several grants including funding from the Austrian Science Fund for extremely high qualified women (Elise Richter Program) and funding of individual research in the area of non-profit oriented scholarly research (Stand-Alone Program). She has been a work package leader of research projects funded in the EU Seventh Framework Programme (FP7). She is expert peer reviewer for Italian Scientific Evaluation (REPRISE) and Associate Editor of Genus, Journal of Population Sciences.