Ugo joined Sussex in October 2025 as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). He is currently working on a project on how political parties and religious actors approach issues related to Muslim minorities in Europe and the West. He is interested in understanding the discourse on Islam and Muslims by right-wing and left-wing political parties, especially those who are labelled 'populist', and by key religious actors such as the Holy See. He will work under the mentorship of Prof. Fabio Petito.
Before joining Sussex, Ugo obtained his PhD in International Relations at the University of Kent in 2023, with a dissertation that explores the ‘translations’ of the securitization of Islam across right-wing and left-wing parties.
He is author of Islamophobia and translations of securitization in the UK, France and Italy (OUP, forthcoming) and co-author of Methodologies in Critical Terrorism Studies. Gaps and Interdisciplinary Perspectives (Routledge, 2024). He has published in leading journals such as the European Journal of International Security and Security Dialogue.