Federico Donelli is Associate Professor of International Relations in the Department of Political and Social Sciences at the University of Trieste, Italy, and a 2026–2027 Wilson Center Research Fellow in Washington, D.C. His research focuses on the international politics and security of the Middle East and Africa, with particular attention to the foreign policies of regional and extra-regional actors in Sub-Saharan Africa and the Red Sea region. He has published widely in leading journals, including International Affairs, Third World Quarterly, Small Wars & Insurgencies, and The International Spectator. He is the author of Turkey in Africa: Turkey’s Strategic Involvement in Sub-Saharan Africa (Bloomsbury, 2021) and Power Competition in the Red Sea: Testing the Post-Liberal International Order (Bloomsbury, 2025). He is also Senior Research Associate at the Istituto di Studi di Politica Internazionale (ISPI) in Milan, a Senior Scholar Associate at the Nordic Africa Institute (NAI) in Uppsala.