Debora Tonelli is the Georgetown University Representative in Rome, a Research Fellow at the Berkley Centre for Religion, Peace and World Affairs at the same university, a permanent researcher at the Centre for Religious Studies of the Bruno Kessler Foundation (Trento), and a visiting lecturer at the Faculty of Social Sciences of the Pontifical Gregorian University and at the Faculty of Philosophy of the Pontifical University of St Anselm. She is affiliated with the Institute for Advanced Catholic Studies at USC Dornsife.
She obtained her PhD in Political Philosophy from Roma Tre University, having spent a period of study at the Frankfurt School on a DAAD scholarship. She also holds a PhD in Theology from the Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität in Münster (Germany).
Her research has focused on the concept of the norm, isonomy, the biblical legacy in modern political thought, the dynamics between religion and violence, and the political impact of biblical hermeneutics. Among her publications, she co-edited, with Gerard Mannion, Exiting Violence: The Role of Religion, De Gruyter 2024.
