Event Details
Tue, September 30, 2025
16:30 – 18:30
VILLA SASSETTI
Villa La Pietra
Via Bolognese, 120
50130 Florence, Italy
As the Trump Administration continues to break unprecedented US ground in myriad ways, the implications of the Administration’s first nine months will be explored by two panels featuring experts on US and EU policy and politics. A quartet of American visitors, all with experience in U.S. executive and legislative branches, will examine effects of Trump/colleagues’ actions and decisions in the U.S. Then four leading European thinkers—two beloved NYU Florence faculty among them—will take up the political, economic, and cultural consequences of Trump’s first nine months in his second White House turn.
PROGRAM
16:30 Introduction/Welcome
· Rogan Kersh, Academic Director, NYU Florence
16:35 – Panel 1: Implications for the United States
· Paige Alexander, CEO, The Carter Center
· William Antholis, Director/CEO, U. Virginia’s Miller Center of Public Affairs (moderator)
· Matt Bennett, Executive VP, Third Way
· Erik Fatemi, Principal, Cornerstone
17:45 – Panel 2: Implications for Italy/EU
· Federica Bicchi, University of Florence
· Roberto D’Alimonte, Luiss-Guido Carli in Rome & NYU Florence
· Giampiero Gallo, Senior Fellow, Rimini Centre for Economic Analysis, NYU Florence
· Stephen Grand, Atlantic Council/Multi-Faith Neighbors Network (moderator)
Panel Intros: NYU-F students A. Borgman, G. Brooks, J. Cao, B. Linder, A. Littman,
B. Naspinski, S. Wolfson, C. Yeh
Featured Biographies
Paige Alexander
CEO, THE CARTER CENTER
Paige Alexander directs former President Jimmy Carter’s much-respected nonprofit organization founded to advance peace and public health worldwide. Former USAID Deputy for European Region (1993-2001); Asst. Administrator for Europe/Eurasia (2011-15); and Senate-confirmed USAID VP for Middle East & North Africa (2015-17)
William Antholis (Moderator)
DIRECTOR/CEO, U. VIRGINIA'S MILLER CENTER OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS
William Antholis leads US’s most significant presidential studies center. Formerly managing director, Brookings Institution; in Clinton White House, was Director of International Economic Affairs, Senior Advisor to the National Security Advisor, and National Economic Advisor.
Matt Bennett
EXECUTIVE VP, THIRD WAY
Matt Bennett co-founded and co-leads the prominent centrist think tank in Washington, DC. Spent 1994-2000 in White House as Deputy Assistant to the President for Intergovernmental Affairs. Featured panelist at NYU Florence symposium on US Election 2024
Federica Bicchi
ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS, LONDON SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS, AND THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORENCE
Federica Bicchi’s current research focuses on contemporary trends in European diplomacy, especially in relation to the digitalisation of diplomacy and developments in European foreign policy cooperation. Her theoretical perspective contributes to the “practice turn” in International Relations.
Recent publications include articles in Review of International Studies, Cooperation and Conflict, Global Networks, Journal of Common Market Studies, The Hague Journal of Diplomacy, Geopolitics, Journal of European Public Policy, Democratization, and Geopolitics. She has published European Foreign Policy Making towards the Mediterranean (Palgrave, 2007), and edited inter alia Europe and the Occupation of Palestinian Territories since 1967 (Routledge), European Diplomatic Practices (2018, with Niklas Bremberg) and The Struggle for Influence in the Middle East (2015, with Benoit Challand and Steven Heydeman).
She holds a PhD degree in Political Science from the European University Institute and has spent research periods at Stanford University, New York University (New York), University of Siena and the Free University of Berlin.
Roberto D'Alimonte
POLITICAL SCIENCE PROFESSOR, LUISS-GUIDO CARLI ROME, AND NYU FLORENCE
Roberto D’Alimonte is professor of political science at Luiss-Guido Carli in Rome where he has also been chair of the department of political sciences. He is also adjunct professor in the Florence campus of New York University. Until 2010 he has taught for over 30 years at the University of Florence. Professor D’Alimonte has been Ford Foundation Fellow at Yale and American Council of Learned Societies Fellow at Harvard and taught as visiting professor in the political science department at Yale. In the Fall of 1989 he gave his first course in the political science department at Stanford University in Palo Alto and has continued to teach there as a visiting professor for a number of years. At Stanford he has also given courses on Europe in the MBA program at the Graduate School of Business and he has been for many years a speaker in the Stanford Business School’s Executive Program. His most recent research interests have to do with political and electoral change in Western democracies, particularly Italy. In 2005 he founded the Italian Center for Electoral Studies and has been its director until March 2019. Well-known as a political journalist, Professor D’Alimonte covers political events for Il Sole 24 Ore, Italy’s major financial newspaper. He is often sought out by international media for commentary on current Italian and European affairs. His quotes have appeared in The New York Times, Financial Times, The Times, New Yorker, Le Monde, Asahi Shimbun, Bloomberg, Reuters. He has collaborated with former Italy’s Prime Minister Matteo Renzi on electoral reform.
Erik Fatemi
PRINCIPAL, CORNERSTONE
Erik Fatemi: lobbyist for NIH, NSF, & other public and private clients. Served 12 years on US Senate’s Labor-HHS Appropriations Subcommittee, last 3 as Staff Director (2010-13). Only non-NIH employee to receive the NIH Director’s Award.
Giampiero Gallo
PROFESSOR OF ECONOMICS, UNIVERSITY OF FLORENCE AND NYU FLORENCE
Giampiero Gallo received his PhD in Economics from the University of Pennsylvania in 1989. He was Professor of econometrics at the University of Firenze with previous appointments with the Department of Econometrics at the University of Geneva, the World Bank, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and the University of California at San Diego. He has authored several scientific articles on forecasting, financial volatility, and European exchange rate management. At NYU Florence, he teaches “International Economics” and “Econometrics”
Steve Grand
ATLANTIC COUNCIL, MULTI-FAITH NEIGHBORS NETWORK
Steve is the executive director of the Network for Dialogue, a new non-profit initiative designed to facilitate civic dialogue in the Middle East and North Africa. He is also a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and has been in recent years a visiting professor at Erasmus University in Rotterdam, the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam and Utrecht University’s University College. Previously, he served as the executive director of the Atlantic Council’s Middle East Strategy Task Force, co-chaired by former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and former National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley. For more than six years, he directed the Brookings Institution’s Project on U.S. Relations with the Islamic World, where he authored the book Understanding Tahrir Square: What Transitions Elsewhere Can Teach Us About the Prospects for Arab Democracy.
As Senior Advisor at Multi-Faith Neighbors Network, Steve works to ensure MFNN is reaching its goals effectively through relationship building and community engagement along with overseeing the monitoring, evaluation, and learning for our various projects and programs.