H.I.T. High Potential University Leaders Identity & Skills Training Programme - Inclusive leadership in the Academia.

The H.I.T. Programme, now in its fourth edition, offers training modules on academic leadership, sustainable impact, networking and the relationship between gender and careers. Individual coaching, professional networking, mentoring and shadowing are also included.

For the 2024 edition, USI has selected Dr. med. Stefania Rizzo, Professor of the Faculty of Biomedical Sciences, who enthusiastically participates in the programme from February to July 2024.

Below is a short testimonial from Professor Rizzo.

Why did you decide to participate in the programme?

When I read the structure of this Programme, I immediately thought that it was the right place to confront myself with different models of academic leadership, and that through networking and coaching I would be able to develop my own personal leadership mode.

What goals did you set for yourself? What are your expectations?

The first goal is to learn from the experiences that other academic women leaders kindly share, sharing their valuable experience, challenges and successes. Secondly, I hope to become a leadership role model for other academic women myself, both within USI and outside.

What advantages do you see in participating in this programme for your career path within your discipline and as a woman?

The H.I.T. programme is structured to train academic women to take on leadership roles by showing concrete examples of academic women who have done so. I find this to be a very innovative approach to promote inclusiveness, as it is a great source of inspiration and encouragement for the participants. Moreover, with the support of specific actions such as shadowing and coaching, this programme offers real reinforcement towards self-advocacy, confirmed by the testimony that constant commitment, regardless of gender, is rewarded. As a woman, wife and mother, I know how difficult it is to balance career and work with family, so I am grateful to have had this opportunity and to be able to be a role model for young women who should not have to see work and family as alternative choices.

Give a brief description of your academic career and your field of research and work?

Today I am a Full Professor in the Faculty of Biomedical Sciences at USI, and I am proud to have acquired this title in this University, which is young and dynamic, but at the same time already well structured and with an important orientation towards innovation. I am a medical radiologist and since the beginning of my training I have had a great interest in research, as demonstrated by having obtained, in addition to my medical and radiological training, a research fellowship at Harvard Medical School and a PhD at the University of Bologna. Over time I was fortunate enough to be able to merge my research interests with the clinical ones of imaging, working first at a university hospital in Milan, and then, for some years, at the Institute of Imaging of Italian Switzerland of the Ente Ospedaliero Cantonale, where I am now vice-primary physician and head of research for the Clinic of Radiology. My main fields of research today are the study of body composition through imaging methods, advanced technologies applied to gynaecological and oncological imaging.

The Equal Opportunities Service congratulates Professor Rizzo and wishes her a path full of exchanges and opportunities.

For further information about the program write to: [email protected]