Laura Valentini - Biography#

Laura Valentini holds a first degree (“laurea”) in Political Science from Pavia University (Italy), an MA in Legal and Political Theory, and a PhD in Political Philosophy, both from University College London. She was a Junior Research Fellow at The Queen’s College (Oxford University), and a postdoc at the Center for Human Values (Princeton University). Prior to joining LMU in 2021, she was a Professor of Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Kings College London (where she retains a Visiting Professorship), an Associate Professor of Political Science at LSE, and a Lecturer in Political Philosophy at UCL. Laura Valentini has held visiting positions at the Australian National University, the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study, the University of Uppsala, Harvard University, and the University of Frankfurt. In 2015, she was awarded a Philip Leverhulme Prize in Politics and International Relations, and in 2019 she was awarded the Montreal Political Theory Manuscript Workshop Award, and an LSE teaching excellence award. Her work is situated in the fields of contemporary political, legal, and moral philosophy. Particular research interests include: global justice, democracy, freedom, (human) rights, political obligation/authority, the methodology of political theory, and the relation between moral philosophy and social ontology (e.g., the morality of socially constructed norms, the nature of normative powers).