Isabella Maria Lami

Isabella Maria Lami is a Full Professor at the Interuniversity Department of Territorial Sciences, Planning and Policies (DIST), Polytechnic University of Turin, where she plays a key role in research, teaching, and institutional leadership. She is a member of the Board of Directors, the Student Contribution and Planning Commission (STUDI), the Student Team Commission, the Employers' Delegation, and the Future Urban Legacy Lab (FULL) Interdepartmental Center. She has been consistently involved in the Urban and Regional Development Doctoral College for over a decade, supervising PhD research and teaching advanced courses such as Problem Structuring Methods for facing urban uncertainty.

Her educational background is not explicitly detailed in the provided texts, but her academic leadership and research output suggest a strong foundation in urban planning, evaluation, and decision sciences.

Her research interests are deeply interdisciplinary, focusing on multi-criteria analysis, problem structuring methods (PSMs), decision-making processes, and the evaluation of urban plans and projects. She integrates behavioral economics, operations research, and sustainability sciences to address complex urban challenges. Her work is closely aligned with SDG 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities, particularly through the development of indicators, serious games for education, and frameworks for urban regeneration. She emphasizes the integration of technical, value-based, and relational perspectives in planning.

Her recent publications (2022–2025) reflect a strong trend toward urban sustainability, adaptive reuse of buildings, value creation in architecture, and innovative teaching methods such as serious games. She frequently collaborates with researchers like Elena Todella, Beatrice Mecca, and Francesca Abastante, publishing in high-impact journals such as European Journal of Operational Research, Sustainability, and Land, as well as in book chapters for Palgrave and Springer.

Among her scientific recognitions is the Open Badge for Learning to Teach with Innovative Teaching Project (L2T_ITP), highlighting her commitment to pedagogical innovation. She has also led competitive research projects such as LOTUS (2019–2022) and the earlier URBAX2 Erasmus+ project (2002–2004), demonstrating sustained funding success.

In terms of teaching and advising, she supervises PhD students including Beatrice Mecca (thesis: Fostering value creation in architecture) and Federica Rotondo (thesis: Reinterpreting Urban Transitions). She teaches in both doctoral and master’s programs, including Economic Evaluation of Projects and Architecture and Urban Economics, across disciplines such as Architecture, Urban Planning, and Aerospace Engineering. She also led a course on promoting campus sustainability through serious games.

She is a core member of the Future Urban Legacy Lab (FULL), an interdepartmental research center dedicated to advancing sustainable urban transitions through integrated, multi-methodological approaches. Her work emphasizes collaborative, practice-oriented, and ethically grounded planning methodologies for resilient and inclusive cities.