Gianluca Piovesan teaches disciplines of natural, environmental and forest sciences at the University of Tuscia (Viterbo). He received his doctorate from the University of Tuscia in 1998.
He coordinated the course of study in Forest and Nature Sciences (Viterbo and Cittaducale sites) and a PhD program. He was a member and then chairman of the Evaluation Board of the University of Tuscia. He was representative of associate and full professors in the Academic Senate of the University of Tuscia.
He coordinated the work for the initial Anvur accreditation of degree programs in the CUN 05 (Biological Sciences) and 07 (Agricultural and Veterinary Sciences) areas. He has conducted two verifications for the State Council on topics proper to forestry and environmental legislation.
His research activities cover topics proper to forest ecology and biology, ecological land planning and management, biodiversity conservation, old-growth forests and rewilding.
He has served as scientific coordinator and collaborated in numerous research projects, including at the international level (USA – National Science Foundation) with particular reference to the study and conservation of forests in protected areas and paleoenvironmental reconstructions.
He has also participated as coordinator in several projects on monitoring and study of old-growth forests in Natura Sites in and outside National Parks and Regional Reserves. In particular, he was scientific coordinator of the LIFE “Preservation of Taxus and Ilex Central Appennine beech-wood,” 2003-2007.
He carried out technical and scientific coordination activities for Italian protected areas within the World Heritage nomination dossier “Primeval Beech Forests of the Carpathians and other regions of Europe” (tentative list, nomination dossiers (2017 and 2021 entries).
He currently collaborates with the Parks involved in the International Management Committee of the serial site for monitoring and management of UNESCO heritage.
He is the author of more than 120 scientific publications. He conducts research within the National Biodiversity Future Center coordinating line 4.4.3 Optimal PA management strategies.
He is Reviews editor of the journal Trees (Springer) and a member of the editorial board of the journals Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution and iForest. He is head of the Unitus research unit of the PRIN ‘Shifting Paradigms: Biodiversity Law, Ecological Primacy and the Redefinition of Sustainability in the European Green Deal’.
Since January 2021 Co-Director of the Master’s Degree Program ‘Conservation of Biodiversity and Combating Environmental Crime’ (COBCRA) in collaboration with the Carabinieri Officers’ School, and since November 14, 2022 Chair of the First Level Program in Natural and Environmental Sciences (L-32) at the University of Tuscia, Department of Ecological and Biological Sciences.