Maria Sassi holds a PhD in Agricultural Economics and currently works as an Associate Professor at the Department of Economics and Management, University of Pavia, Italy. 

Her teaching duties include "Management of the Agrifood system", "Food Economics and Agricultural Development", and "Quantitative Policy Analysis for Development".
She is a member of the Technical Board of the Master Programme in Cooperation and Development organised by the University of Pavia, where she teaches a course on Food Security and Agricultural Development. Additionally, she served as the local director of the Erasmus Mundus Joint Master's Degree in Global Development Policy. Furthermore, she holds the position of Country Representative of the European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes. She is a member of the Commission for International Cooperation and Development of the University of Pavia. She is an Expert in the Technical Assistance and Information Exchange instrument of the European Commission.
She is a project evaluator for the University of Pavia in the field of development cooperation and a representative of the University of Pavia in working and technical groups established at Italian institutions.
She participated in various international research projects supported by the European Union, international organisations, governmental organisations, and NGOs focused on food security and agricultural development issues in Sub-Saharan Africa. She has published articles on these topics in international journals. Her Orcid number is 0000-0002-6114-6826.