Margherita Melillo is a scholar at the O’Neill Institute.
Between 2021 and 2024, she worked at the O’Neill Institute, focusing on the regulation of healthy diets and tobacco control. Before joining O’Neill, Melillo was a research fellow at the Max Planck Institute Luxembourg for Procedural Law. In 2020, she completed her Ph.D. at the European University Institute, where she focused her research on the role of evidence in international law on tobacco control. Her thesis won the 2021 Antonio Cassese Prize and was published as a book by Cambridge University Press, “Weaponising evidence: a history of tobacco control in international law.”
Melillo has presented her research at a number of international conferences, published in peer-reviewed journals, and taught at several universities to different audiences (undergraduates, graduates, professionals). She speaks Italian, English, French, Spanish, and has a basic knowledge of German.
In addition to the Ph.D., Melillo holds a law degree from the Università di Pisa and a diploma from the Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna and is admitted to the bar of Naples, Italy.