I am Marta Maria Nicolazzi a sociologist, methodologist, researcher and activist.
Specialising in gender and migration, I have spent more than ten years working to build fairer, safer and more inclusive worlds by translating research into action, listening into political proposals, and care into method.
After completing my academic training in London, where I graduated with First-Class Honours in Sociology from Goldsmiths, University of London, and earned a Master’s degree in Sociology of Childhood and Children’s Rights at University College London (UCL), I returned to Milan in 2020 to continue my research and root my work more firmly in the local context.
I have recently completed a PhD in Sociology and Methodology of Social Research at the University of Milan, within the Network for the Advancement of Social and Political Studies (NASP). My doctoral project is entitled Bodies, Selves and Spaces: Gendered Experiences of Milanese Urban Settings and examines how women experience and move through the public spaces surrounding Milan’s main railway stations, using a feminist and participatory approach. As part of this work, which investigates the relationship between bodies, gender, emotions and the city, I spent six months as a visiting researcher in the Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning at Utrecht University.
Alongside my academic work, from 2021 to 2025 I served as a municipal councillor for Milan’s central district (Municipio 1), with responsibility for equal opportunities, and chaired the committee on ‘Security, Sustainable Mobility, Markets, the Night-time City and Conflicts’. Today, although I no longer hold institutional office, I continue my political engagement in other forms, bringing to it the critical perspective of research and the radical practice of active listening as I am convinced that public policy should begin with the needs and aspirations of those who inhabit and move through the places it shapes.
Throughout my career, I have worked with international NGOs such as LMPE, UNHCR and UNICEF; local organisations including Babel’s Blessing, Cen8, Coach Bright, MamaChat, Mani Tese and Treasure House; universities including the European University Institute and the University of Trento; research centres such as Opcit Research; and organisations that fund and advance rights, including Semia – Fondo delle Donne. Across these contexts in Italy, the United Kingdom and Morocco, I have designed and coordinated workshops and social and educational activities, research projects, fundraising campaigns and advocacy initiatives on gender, childhood, migration, human rights, civic space, democratic participation and spatial justice.
In 2021, I co-founded DONNEXSTRADA, a grassroots organisation created to advance women’s right to safety in public spaces. From the streets to social media, and from the media to institutions, the organisation runs campaigns, training and advocacy initiatives that seek to transform fear into collective strength.
In 2025, I co-founded Stiamo Fresche, a collective and observatory focused on egg freezing, access to fertility preservation and reproductive self-determination.
Since 2026, I have also been a member of Eva in Rosso, contributing to a collective space that approaches menstrual, sexual and reproductive health as a field of awareness, education, research and cultural transformation.
Across all these contexts, I try to turn listening into proposals and theory into concrete action, developing tools capable of generating awareness, new possibilities and change. I distance myself from systems that silence, simplify or exploit complexity, and from dynamics that disregard care or reduce it to an instrument. I feel most fulfilled when I can generate questions, open spaces for shared sense-making and explore the nuances of experience; but also when I build a daily life aligned with my moral values, my sense of justice, and my ethics of care and responsibility. These principles guide my choices, grounded in the belief that the personal is always political.
