Personale docente

Elena Todella is an architect and Associate Professor inPlanning Evaluation and Project Appraisal at the Department of Engineering and Architecture (DIA) of the University of Parma, where she teaches ‘Evaluation’ and ‘Economic Valuation of Plans and Projects’. 

In 2020, she obtained her PhD in “Architecture. History and Project” from Politecnico di Torino. During her PhD, she was a visiting researcher at the Manchester Architecture Research Group (MARG) at the University of Manchester. Subsequently, from 2020 to 2023, she held a research grant and from 2023 to 2025 she was an RTDA researcher at the same university. She is currently conducting research on evaluation issues in support of decision-making processes in territorial and urban transformations, with a particular focus on methods for structuring complex problems. She also deals with the measurement and evaluation of sustainability in terms of value creation, including social aspects, and the localisation of indicators. Finally, her research explores the role of evaluation in supporting design practices from an interdisciplinary perspective, in the management of complex decision-making problems and in the evaluation of projects from a multidimensional perspective.

Since 2022, she has been a lecturer in the Master's Degree courses in “Building Engineering-Architecture” and the Degree in “Architecture-Engineering” at the Alma Mater Studiorum University of Bologna. As an RTDA, at the Polytechnic University of Turin, she has collaborated with credits to the Project Unit of the Master's Degree in Architecture, Construction and Cities “Architecture and Urban Space” (2025) and to the Bachelor's Degree course in Architecture “Theories and Tools for Real Estate Valuations” (2022-2025). She has held third-level teaching collaborations for lectures and exercises in the inter-university programme (Politecnico di Torino and University of Torino) in Urban and Regional Development ‘Problem Structuring Methods for facing urban uncertainty’ (2023-2025). He has also been a visiting lecturer at the Université Gustave Eiffel in Paris (2022-2025) and Polis University in Tirana (2023). 

From 2020 to the present, he has participated in: the European projects ‘LOTUS: Locally Organised Transition of Urban Sustainable Spaces’, ‘GreenFORCE. Foster Research Excellence for Green Transition in the Western Balkans’ and ‘UrbaNEX–WB: Sustainable Urban Transitions in the WB: Enhancing Capacities for Integrated Local Governance’; the NRRP project “Agritech: National Research Centre for Agricultural Technologies”, Task 8.4.2 “Multidimensional sustainability assessment of circular technologies in agriculture”. He has also participated in other activities in research groups characterised by national collaborations, such as 'QUICHE: Which measurements for which policies? Towards Sustainable Development Goal 11', and departmental or university projects at the Politecnico di Torino, such as “SUITE: Decision support in an urban context in the digital age: interactions and uncertainties” and “University Masterplan. Masterplan for the definition of strategies and policies for the development of the Politecnico di Torino sites and spaces”. Finally, she has participated in conventions or collaboration agreements with public and private entities, such as support for the Union of Romagna Faentina as part of the project ‘Econnecting: green civic decision for proximity territories’.

She participates in national and international scientific networks and associations, such as the Italian Society of Appraisal and Evaluation (SIEV) and the EUROYoung forum of EURO, the European Association of Operational Research Societies. She is also a member of the “tdpLAB. Laboratorio di Teoria del Progetto” research centre. She is the author of scientific publications, both nationally and internationally, and has carried out coordination and organisational activities at national and international conferences, seminars and workshops.

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