She has held the Chair in History of education since 2006, and since 2010 been Director of the Department of Education at the Università Cattolica Sacro Cuore in Milan, Italy. Member of the Executive Committee of the International Standing Conference for History of Education (ISCHE). Former President of the Italian Academic Society of Education (2018-2020). She served as Education Evaluator for the 2011-2014 period for the Evaluation of Research at the Ministry of Education, Universities and National Research in Italy. Since 2018, National Education Evaluator for the Funding of National Research Projects (PRIN 2017), chosen by the National Ministerial Committee of Research Control.

Guest conference speaker at numerous international congresses, her fields of research focusing on the history of universities, about which she published the book La politica universitaria italiana nell’età della Destra storica 1848-1876 (Brescia 1993), which received the “Pescara” National Award in 1993); the history of childhood, about which she published Fanciulli soldati. La militarizzazione dell'infanzia abbandonata in età moderna (Rome 2003) & Il Novecento: il secolo del bambino? (Parma 2017, co-edited with M. Gecchele & P. Dal Toso); the history of special education, which may be seen in Classifying children: a historical perspective on testing and measurement (special issue of Paedagogica Historica, 2019, co-edited with Antonio F. Canales); Education and the Body in Europe (1900-1950), Movements, public health, pedagogical rules and cultural ideas (Berlin 2021, coedited with A. Németh & T. Kasper,); the history of women's education, which may be seen in Breaking boundaries: women in higher education (special issue of  Paedagogica Historica, 2020, coedited with T. Fitzgerald); the history of schooling and the history of education and the press.

In 2008 and 2009 she received a research bursary from the Austrian Academy of Science to conduct research in Vienna. In 2011 she was awarded the Austrian Cross of Honour in Arts and Sciences for her studies into pedagogy and schooling in the Habsburg Empire (La scuola degli Asburgo. Pedagogia e formazione degli insegnanti tra il Danubio e il Po (1773-1918), Turin, 2012).

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7685-9925