Professor Anna Sergi
RUSI Senior Associate Fellow, OCP; SHOC Network Member - Researcher
Affiliated with the Organised Crime and Policing Studies research group
Anna Sergi is full professor of sociology of law and deviance in the Department of Political and Social Sciences at Alma Mater Studiorum in Bologna. Her research field is within critical and cultural criminology applied to organised crime studies.
Before arriving in Bologna in October 2025, she was full professor of criminology at the University of Essex, UK, since 2015. She is currently honorary professor at the University of Essex and also at the University of Melbourne.
Professor Sergi has written several academic books and scientific articles on the 'ndrangheta in Italy and around the world, including Australia, Canada, and Europe, and on cocaine trafficking in port cities. She has been a visiting fellow and professor in several international institutions.
She has conducted fieldwork research with police forces in the UK, Australia, Canada, Italy and within European institutions (e.g. Europol), for which she has also consulted within her research projects. Professor Sergi has served as an expert witness in court trials in Germany and Australia, based on her expertise, and has consulted or worked with/for think tanks, research centres, and other institutions such as The Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, Interpol, RUSI and Libera. She routinely offers commentary in the media about current affairs in organised crime policing and trends.
In 2023, Professor Sergi won the Early Career Award from the European Society of Criminology (ESC) for scientific excellence within ten years of her PhD.
Passionate about writing and analytical communication, including in forms other than academia, she has edited, together with Stefano Nazzi (il post), the Italian podcast “Le Onorate: donne dentro e contro la 'ndrangheta” (Honored Women: Women Inside and Against the 'Ndrangheta); and, with Francesca Berardi (ChoraMedia), in Italian / English the podcast “Mare di Rabbia” (Sea of Anger). In English with Carlo Oreglia (SBS Australia), she co-authored the podcast “My Australian Mafia Roadtrip".