Antonia Liguori is a Professor of Participatory Storytelling and Public Policy at the School of Social Sciences, Humanities & Law at Teesside University, UK, and a world leading expert in Digital Storytelling. 
Over her career, she has had the privilege to experience a very diverse and exciting pathway, both in the heritage sector in Italy and in academia in the UK (Loughborough University 2014-2023; Teesside University 2024-present).

Her educational background is in Modern and Contemporary History, with a focus on Social History between World War I and World War II. During her doctoral studies in History and Computer Science, at the University of Bologna, Italy (2002-2005), she worked in an interdisciplinary team carrying out studies for the virtual reconstruction of historic cities, taking into consideration social, demographic, artistic and cultural aspects. As part of her research, she looked at technologies and tools for enriching History learning.

Before moving to the UK, from 2006 to 2012, she coordinated the Multimedia Department at BAICR Sistema Cultura, a prestigious Consortium of cultural institutions (including the Istituto dell’Enciclopedia Italiana Treccani, Fondazione Antonio Gramsci, Fondazione Luigi Sturzo, Fondazione Lelio Basso, Società Geografica Italiana) with the aim of contributing to the enhancement of cultural heritage through the use of innovative methodologies and the creation of digital environments. During that period, she had the opportunity to learn about and experiment with the Digital Storytelling methodology in formal and non-formal education, and to apply that as a tool for community engagement and public history.

Since then, she has been involved in a variety of international research projects to develop tools and methods to foster innovation in education; to explore the role of storytelling and memories in today’s digital world; to investigate and trial ways of using digital storytelling as a participatory methodology for interdisciplinary research. Over the past five years her research has been focusing on three main strands: applied storytelling on environmental issues; digital storytelling in (cultural/heritage) education; storytelling, sense of place and cultural values. In 2018, she was awarded an AHRC Fellowship at the Smithsonian Center for Learning and Digital Access, in Washington DC, US, to explore digital storytelling as a teaching strategy within the Smithsonian Learning Lab.