Chiara is a professor in political science (specialising in International Relations) at the Centre for International Studies (CERI) at Sciences Po. Before moving to Paris, she was an associate professor at the Swedish Defence University and an academy fellow at the Department of Peace and Conflict Research, Uppsala University.

Her research is about multilateralism on the ground, peacekeeping operations, norms, cultures and civil-military relations. In particular, her research agenda revolves around multilateral governance and management of peace and security across different regions. Her two main areas of expertise are (1) multilateralism on the ground, multinational governance and management of peace and security (UN peacekeeping, dynamics of transformations of multinational interventions with increased participation of non- Western contributors, and search and rescue missions at sea in particular) and (2) civil – military relations and the transformation of the state. She has also written about methods, in particular about case studies and what causality means in qualitative research.

Chiara studied political science, international relations and political sociology at the Sant 'Anna School of Advanced Studies in Pisa and the Ecole Normale Supérieure in Lyon. She received her PhD at the European University Institute in Florence and conducted her postdoctoral studies at the Belfer Center (Harvard Kennedy School). She held visiting positions at the University of Victoria (Canada) and at the University of Warwick (UK) and has given talks in a several universities, such as the Catòlica Universidad de Chile, the RSIS in Singapore, the Reppy Centre at Cornell University, the University of Reading, Oxford University, the University of Southern Denmark. Her research has been funded by the Fulbright Commission, the European Commission, the Swedish Research Council, the Royal Swedish Academy.

Her work has been published in the European Journal of International Relations, Security Studies, Acta Sociologica, Armed Forces and Society, Security and Defence Analysis, Small Wars and Insurgencies, Comparative European Politics, among others. Her first book Military Cultures in Peace and Stability Operations was published with the University of Pennsylvania Press in 2018. Her second book (with Vincenzo Bove and Andrea Ruggeri) Composing Peace. Mission Composition in UN Peacekeeping was published by Oxford University Press in April 2020. Chiara is an editorial board member of Security Studies (and its ethics committee as well as one of the mentors to increase submissions from the Global South) and Armed Forces and Society.