Valeria Venditti

Dr Valeria Venditti (she/her – they/them) is a Lecturer in Ethics at the School of Nursing and Midwifery, University College Cork, with a background in philosophy, feminist theory, and critical approaches to healthcare. Their research explores how ethical and political frameworks intersect with issues of gender, sexuality, and care. They hold a PhD in Philosophy from Sapienza University of Rome and have held research and teaching and researching positions at Trinity College Dublin, Charles University in Prague, and the University of Glasgow.

Their research is grounded in queer and transfeminist theory and ethics, examining how normative structures shape the lives of those who fall outside dominant categories of gender and sexuality. A central concern of their work is how transgender and gender-diverse people navigate healthcare spaces that were not built with them in mind, including maternity and other sex-specific clinical environments. Alongside this, their research engages with obstetric violence and midwifery education, exploring how feminist and queer perspectives can transform clinical training and the ethics of reproductive care.

Their work has been recognised through sustained research funding from bodies including the Irish Research Council and the Health Research Board, and is disseminated across academic and public-facing platforms.

At UCC, Dr Venditti is a founder and board member of the Trans Research Alliance Network for Students and Staff (TRANSS), and a member of the J.U.S.T.I.C.E. research group. They are also a board member of the Society of Women in Philosophy Ireland and of the Professional Association for Trans Healthcare Ireland. They are committed to research that is academically rigorous, community-facing, and useful to practitioners and policymakers alike.

Dr Venditti's research sits at the intersection of philosophy, healthcare, and law, with a strong interdisciplinary orientation and a philosophical core. Their work draws on feminist and queer theory, bioethics, ethics of care, political philosophy, and legal theory to examine how normative structures shape the lives of marginalised individuals, particularly in relation to gender, sexuality, and embodiment.

A central focus of their current research is trans healthcare and critical midwifery: how gender-diverse people experience sex-specific medical environments, what ethical obligations healthcare professionals carry in those encounters, and how obstetric violence intersects with questions of rights and institutional care. This work extends into nursing and midwifery ethics education and queer medical humanities, exploring how feminist and queer frameworks can reshape the ethical formation of healthcare professionals.

Their research extends to the impact of new and emerging technologies on bodies and on social understandings of sex and gender, approached through a feminist technophilosophical lens. They are equally drawn to more speculative traditions: utopian studies, affect theory, and DIY and anarchic practices of care. Across all of these areas, their work is animated by a commitment to social justice and to research that is useful beyond the academy.