Vincenza is a small-scale farmer in Sicily (Italy), where she takes care of ancient olive trees, according to the principles of organic agriculture and agroecology.
Her background is in Historical Ecology. She graduated from the Department of Archaeology and Ancient History at Uppsala University (Sweden).
Vincenza´s scientific interests are related to the investigation of land-use dynamics at different spatial and temporal scales, and the implementation of such knowledge to address contemporary agroecological issues within a deep-time perspective.
In her research, she integrates Historical Ecology analytical methods with new techniques for the extraction of information from remotely sensed data (OBIA), combining moreover scientific knowledge with the traditional ecological knowledge of local communities.
She believes such cross-disciplinary allows a more accurate analysis of land use variability, vegetation changes and social dynamics in agro-ecosystems.
Vincenza is currently the project manager of the KA2 project “CROSSLAND. A new cross-disciplinary framework for studying the landscape over the long term”, coordinated by the Department of Human Geography at Stockholm University.
Her main focus are Mediterranean rural areas and the biocultural heritage of their agrosystems. For the LICCI project, she will collect data on local knowledge and climate change perception in the rural communities of the Morello Valley, a hilly area of inner Sicily crossed by the Morello river and characterised by long-term entanglements between humans and nature since prehistory, still mainly unexplored.