After a rich career in academia, Flavia has stepped out to be an Affiliate Professor at the University of Sydney, so she has more time to feed her passions of guiding younger academics and digging deeper into art and architectural history. She loves to mentor academics at all career stages and has much experience in guiding promotion applications.
Flavia is a great listener, and she is easy to listen to when she ‘connects the dots’ and illustrates her thoughts in word pictures and metaphors.
Early in her career she spent 8 years in Italy in a US based university. This was a valuable experience but became a challenge when she moved back to Australia as she had to start again at level A. This was a set back, but she was determined to become a research leader. At Swinburne University she observed strong leaders and noticed how they brought people and ideas together and sought to understand different points of view. At this time her ambition to become a world leading architectural historian on Italian Fascist architecture was unwavering.
Flavia reflects how her background in design has influenced her approach to mentoring. When teaching architectural design, each student has their own project and a desire to put their own ideas into practice. Flavia says “You don’t design the building for them; you are there to guide and give some practical advice, so the student designs the building they want”. “When I move that approach into mentoring, I am thinking, how can I actually help you get to where you want to go with my experience and knowledge”.
In her extensive work with women in academia Flavia was keen to communicate the importance of academics learning to put themselves first. While it is important to have a spirit of generosity in academia this should not be the altar on which you sacrifice your own career goals. Flavia’s mantra is: Don’t fit your goals around your work, fit your work around your goals!