Valentina Bortolami received her PhD in Philosophy at the University of Padua in 2021 with a dissertation on feminist epistemologies, naturalism, and objectivity, after obtaining her BA and MA degrees at the same university. Her areas of specialization are feminist epistemology, feminist philosophy of science, feminist standpoint theory, and feminist new materialism.

Her project, entitled “Conceptualizing Oppression-Related Emotions (CORE)”, brings together Philosophy, Women's and Gender Studies, and Psychology to respond to a scenario in which women (along with other marginalized groups) experience acts of violence and oppression that trigger unpleasant emotions to a much greater extent than other subjects. CORE proposes the category of Oppression-Related Emotions (ORE) to conceptualize the relationship among emotions, cognition, and health, with respect to oppression and feminist theory through close comparison with scientific disciplines that study emotions and health.