DAVIDE RODOGNO

I earned my PhD in 2001 from the Graduate Institute of International Studies and the University of Geneva. After working with the World Bank in Lithuania, I was appointed Research Fellow at the London School of Economics (2002–2004) and as Foreign Associate Researcher at the Institut d’Histoire du Temps Présent in Paris (2004–2005). From 2005 to 2011, I was RCUK Academic Fellow in the School of History at the University of St Andrews, and concurrently held a Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) Professorship (2008–2011). In 2011, I joined the Graduate Institute in Geneva as Associate Professor and was promoted to Full Professor in 2014. I headed the Department of International History and Politics from 2014 to 2017.

My doctoral dissertation was first published in Italian in 2003, and later in English by Cambridge University Press in 2006 under the title Fascism’s European Empire. I am also the author of Against Massacre: Humanitarian Interventions in the Ottoman Empire (1815–1914), the Birth of a Concept and International Practice, published by Princeton University Press in 2011, and Night on Earth: A History of International Humanitarianism in the Near East (1918–1930), published by Cambridge University Press in 2021. Over the years, I have published numerous scholarly articles in leading journals and edited several volumes on topics including  humanitarian photography, expert transnational networks, the social work of the League of Nations and the politics of sovereignty and nationalism in interwar Europe. I have also edited special issues of academic journals and contributed chapters to collective volumes (see the ‘Publications’ section for details).

In 2012, I was commissioned by the Kofi Annan Foundation to produce a confidential report on the mission of the Joint Special Envoy of the United Nations and the League of Arab States for Syria.  

My research focuses on the history of humanitarianism, international organisations, philanthropic foundations, and global public health since the nineteenth century. I have been a grantee of the Rockefeller Archive Centre (2011) and a principal investigator for two SNSF-funded projects: The Myth of Homogeneity and Minority Protection in Belgium, Italy, and Spain (2017–2022) and The Heralds of Globalisation: The Rockefeller Foundation Fellows (1910s–1970s).

In 2008, I co-founded the History of International Organisations Network (HION) and collaborated with public institutions such as genevomonde.ch and the Museum of the Red Cross. I co-founded Utopia3, a podcast initiative that partnered for three years with the International Film Festival and Forum on Human Rights (FIFDH), where I continue to serve as a film pre-selection juror. I serve as a consultant for Chahut Média.

I have taught at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) and contributed to various Executive Education programmes. Since 2016, I have directed the Executive Education Certificate in Advanced Studies on International Advocacy and Public Affairs. I also teach in the Graduate Institute Summer Programme and taught for the Smith College Geneva Programme from 2012 to 2024.

Since 2020 I am the Head of the Interdisciplinary Master’s Program in International and Development Studies. Every year we welcome more than 250 students to the Program. Students come from all over the world to specialise in one of the seven specialisations, and to connect their main field with other issues and themes that we study and research at the Geneva Graduate Institute.

Together with Professor Mahmoud Mohamedou, I have served as a consultant to Google on two projects related to the history and politics of racism. We also co-authored a study on contested public spaces commissioned by the City of Geneva.

Since 2024, I have co-directed the Geneva Graduate Institute's Centre for Digital Humanities and Multilateralism.