Dr. Mattioni’s research areas are food policy, food environments and food security. For the past 20 years, she has been collaborating extensively with the Rome-based UN agencies in project management in developing countries, research and training on various topics such as sustainable livelihoods, project impact assessments and gender.
In FAO she worked with the Nutrition and Food Systems Division on a Food and Green Environment Project implemented in Dar es Salaam, Lima and Tunis, and more recently she has worked as a research associate with the University of Cardiff on an EU-funded project on urban food systems in Europe.
She has experience in using mixed methods of research, and particularly qualitative methods, and her more recent research has used transition theory and social practice theory as analytical frames.
Dr. Mattioni holds a BA in Political Science, two MScs – in Development Studies at SOAS, UK, and in Food Policy at the City University London – and a PhD from the University of Pisa.
Recent publications
Mattioni D., Milbourne P., and Sonnino R. (2022) Destabilizing the food regime “from within”: tools and strategies used by urban food policy actors, Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions (submitted and reviewed)
FAO, INFORMAS, GAIN (2022), Assessment of retail food environments and green spaces for healthy cities, Rome (one of the main authors of the Report).
Mattioni D. (2021) Constructing a food retail environment that encourages healthy diets in cities: the contribution of local-level policy makers and civil society, International Journal of Sociology of Agriculture and Food, 27 (1)
Mattioni D., Loconto A.M., and Brunori G. (2020) Healthy diets and the retail food environment: a sociological approach, Health and Place, vol. 61.
Mattioni D. and Caraher M., (2018) Moving towards Ecologically Sustainable Diets: Lessons from an Italian Box Delivery Scheme, International Journal of Consumer Studies, vol. 42, issue 4.
Mattioni D., Galli F., and Brunori G. (2018) “Understanding the food environment: the role of practice theory and policy implications”, in Sustainable Diets, edited by Burlingame B. and Dernini S., CABI Books
Dernini, S., Lairon, D., Berry, E. M., Brunori, G., Capone, R., Donini, L. M., Iannetta, M., Mattioni, D., Piscopo, S., Serra-Majem, L., Sonnino, A., Stefanova, M. (2018) “The Med Diet 4.0 framework: a multidimensional driver for revitalizing the Mediterranean diet as a sustainable diet model”, in Sustainable Diets, edited by Burlingame B. and Dernini S., CABI Books
Mattioni D. and Brunori G. (2018) "Moving towards healthy diets: the key role of food environments", Nutrition and Food Science International Journal, vol. 6, issue 1
Mattioni D., (2018) Linking Food Systems, the Food Environment and Nutrition – a Focus on Africa, Background Paper for the World Bank Report on “Productive Diversification of African Agriculture and Effects on Resilience and Nutrition”, Washington D.C.