Marzia Grassi (Prato, Italy 1949 -) holds a PhD in Development Economics from ISCTE-IUL (2002), Master in African Studies (CEA-ISCTE- 1997) and a degree in Economics from the University of Florence (1976)
After many years as a full professor at a Secondary School in Rome (1976-1990) she moved to Portugal, where she has lived since 1990. She participated in several development missions in Portuguese-speaking African countries (PALOP) mainly Angola and Cape Verde and worked as a researcher in social sciences at ICS-ULisboa between 2002 and 2019, an institution where she is currently a retired researcher.
Throughout her academic career, Marzia Grassi's main research area took into account an integrated approach on the topic of transnationalism, gender, and development in both Europe and Portuguese-speaking African countries. She has developed and conducted several projects in these countries, considering the mobility of people, goods, and ideas that have characterized the contemporary world in recent years in which she explores an innovative methodological approach with a strong comparative potential. The data collection methodology she used is based on three different premises: multiple locations; multiple types of migrants (low education and qualified migrants); combination of quantitative and qualitative techniques, using surveys for statistical purposes only.

Among the various research projects Marzia Grassi coordinated, both with national and European funding, she has published results: on gender and Cape Verdean migration in Portugal, Italy and the USA (Grassi and Évora 2007); on social networks and young migrants from Cape Verde and Angola in Portugal (Grassi 2009); on social networks and mobility in contemporary Angolan society (Grassi 2010); on the effects of illegality on migration between Africa and two European countries (Portugal and Italy) - (Grassi, M., Giuffré, M. (Eds.2015); on the consequences of conjugality between transnational couples on the double migratory flow between Portugal and Angola (Grassi, M., Ferreira, T. (Eds.2016) -; on the modalities of transnational care between Portugal and Angola and their consequences on fatherhood (Grassi et al. 2016); on gender and citizenship Europe-Latin America- Africa (Grassi and Ferreira (eds) 2019; Grassi, 2018).
Within the scope of these projects, Marzia Grassi recruited and supervised a research group composed of post-doctoral researchers and young researchers developing their doctoral projects. In 2010, and as a result of an ESF - European Science Foundation workshop, she formed a network in this emerging area - "Transnational Lives, Mobility and Gender" - with senior and junior members from around the world (https://www.tlnetwork.ics.ul.pt/) and an online publication - TL WP Series, under ISSN 2182-5718.
Marzia Grassi's ongoing research interests articulate mobility and its identity processes to study migration and the specificity of the internal family organization between islands in the Cape Verde archipelago in comparison with transnational mobility to Portugal.
She was an Invited Professor at several Universities and author of 10 books and 43 scientific articles.