Giorgia Linardi is a committed legal expert and activist, dedicated to defending refugees and migrants’ rights and addressing the humanitarian crisis in the Central Mediterranean. She has been involved in operations at sea and advocacy, taking part to several rescue missions and aerial monitoring activities in the Central Mediterranean and Aegean Sea over the last decade.

Linardi began her career during the Libyan crisis in 2011, working with UN agencies. In 2015, she joined Sea-Watch as a legal advisor in Lampedusa, later coordinating rescue missions in the Aegean Sea. Since 2018, she has become Sea-Watch’s spokesperson in Italy and legal and strategic advisor to offshore rescue operations, while leading the the Italian branch of Sea-Watch.

Linardi has also worked with Doctors Without Borders as a Humanitarian Affairs Officer aboard the rescue ship Aquarius, and in Libya and Tunisia as Advocacy Manager.

She held the course of Refugee Law at Milan’s Bicocca University and and is currently Visiting Professor at the Graduate Institute. She leads a regional project on structural racism in the Euro-Mediterranean region for Avocats Sans Frontières, and she writes for the Italian newspaper La Stampa.

She has been awarded several recognitions including the prize Minerva Anna Maria Mammoliti for the protection of human and civil rights and the honorary citizenship of Palermo conferred by the MEP Leoluca Orlando.