Alessandro Paravano, Assistant Professor at POLIMI School of Management – Politecnico di Milano, has been awarded a Fulbright scholarship to carry out a research period at Ohio State University. Together with the other selected Fulbright grantees, he was received at the Quirinale Palace by the President of the Italian Republic, Sergio Mattarella. The award is part of one of the world’s most prestigious international programs promoting academic, scientific and cultural exchange between Italy and the United States.

The Fulbright is far more than a scholarship. It is one of the most influential cultural and scientific diplomacy programs in the world, created to strengthen mutual understanding between countries through research, education and academic exchange. Active in Italy since 1946, it has enabled approximately 14,000 Italian and American citizens to study, teach and conduct research in the two countries. Its alumni include 8 Nobel Prize winners, 14 Pulitzer Prize winners, six MacArthur Fellows, two former Italian Prime Ministers and one Senator for Life. These figures explain why joining the Fulbright community means becoming part of an international network of excellence, leadership and impact.

The events of the past few days celebrated precisely this bridge between Italy and the United States. At the Farnesina, during the Fulbright Annual Meeting, students, researchers, alumni, representatives of the Fulbright Commission, the U.S. Embassy and the academic communities of both countries gathered to present the new grantees and reaffirm the value of cultural and scientific exchange. This was followed by the meeting with President Mattarella, who recalled the deeper meaning of Fulbright’s vision: building peace and cooperation not through imposition, but through knowledge, respect, shared research and cultural engagement.

Paravano’s research moves exactly in this direction: understanding the economic, industrial and social value that future commercial space stations may generate. At Ohio State University, a key partner in the Starlab consortium, Paravano will work on the project “CLEO – Commercializing the Low Earth Orbit” dedicated to the study of Commercial Space Stations: private infrastructures that could carry forward the legacy of the International Space Station after 2030. His goal is to develop a quantitative model capable of mapping who creates, receives and captures value within the ecosystem of future space stations: companies, universities, agencies, suppliers, end users and non-space sectors such as pharmaceuticals, energy, food and advanced materials. The research brings together management engineering, the space economy and transatlantic collaboration, with a clear ambition: to help Italy and the United States design not only new infrastructures in space, but also new markets, new applications and new forms of cooperation.

More detail: https://www.quirinale.it/it/notizie/mattarella-ha-ricevuto-direttivo-commissione-fulbright