Valeria is pursuing a joint PhD degree at the faculty of Social Sciences, KU Leuven, and the faculty of Geosciences, Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development, Utrecht University. She is affiliated with the ERC-funded PolyCarbon Project led by Prof. Katja Biedenkopf.

Valeria studies the socio-institutional landscapes affecting climate change mitigation. She is particularly interested in the history, interactions, and effects of climate policyscapes, which she researches via the case of electricity generation in the United Kingdom (1956-today). Specifically, she aims to understand how the structure and the dynamics within the UK climate policyscapes affect the uptake of ready-to-deploy renewables with a spatial-institutional lens. Valeria's PhD therein examines various modes of interactions within climate policyscapes and their effects on the uptake of solar PV and onshore wind in England and of offshore wind in the North Sea. To this end, she employs a multi-method approach, combining network analysis, comparative historical analysis, and thematic analysis.

Broadly trained in the social sciences and environmental studies, Valeria has an interdisciplinary background with specialisations in climate change governance and human geography. She holds a Bachelor degree from University of Pavia and a Master of Science from University of Copenhagen, where she wrote her thesis on the vulnerability and resilience to urban flooding in Mumbai. She also completed a Master of Philosophy at the University of Cambridge, where she studied the relationship between climate policy and public research for technological change. Previously, Valeria worked as a research assistant at the Copenhagen Centre on Energy Efficiency, UNEP DTU Partnership.