Melania Gigante obtained her Master’s degree in Archaeology from the University of Naples “L'Orientale” with a thesis focused on Physical Anthropology (BIO/08). In 2020, Melania completed her PhD in Bioarchaeology with distinction at the University of Bologna.
She was granted two postdoctoral scholarships for each academic year (2020-2021 and 2021-2022) to conduct research in Bioarchaeology and Physical Anthropology at the Department of Cultural Heritage of the University of Padua.
Melania was granted the Seal of Excellence Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions by the European Research Commission in 2022 for the research project 'Evolution of human life history markers: age at puberty and first childbirth in ancient Italian societies'. She was awarded the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship in 2023.
Melania's research focuses on reconstructing the bio-cultural adaptation patterns of ancient human communities during the evolution of Homo. She utilises isotopic and histological techniques to achieve this, primarily in bone and tooth tissues.
With the GIRLS research project, she focuses on analysing the diachronic evolution of reproductive history parameters in young girls and women in Italy, from the Neolithic to the Roman Imperial ages. The research project employs state-of-the-art experimental approaches in dental histology and high-resolution microchemistry to achieve the analysis.