Melanie is a PhD candidate at the European Institute. Her research focuses on the concept of freedom within modern European philosophy and how it interacts with theories on power, democracy, and institutionalisation. She is particularly interested in Hegel’s concept of freedom. She is also interested in both the conceptual and the practical role of institutions in enabling or disenabling political freedom and in containing power, as well as in the tension between such structures and the indeterminacy operating within them. Her broader interests include German Idealism, political philosophy in the continental tradition, Italian philosophy, and ontology. 

Melanie holds an MSc in Philosophy and Public Policy from the LSE and a Scottish MA in Philosophy and English Literature from the University of Edinburgh. Previously she has worked as an editor at an architecture and design company in Turin, Italy, and as a researcher at a public-arts organisation in Boston, U.S. 

Melanie’s studies are funded by an LSE Studentship.