Michelangelo Giampaoli is an anthropologist and cultural heritage curator. He earned his PhD in ethnology and anthropology from the University of Perugia in Italy and from Paris Nanterre University. Over the past 20 years, he has been involved in researching and promoting cemeteries as places of collective memory, identity and public education in Italy, France, Brazil and the United States. As a professional lecturer, he teaches courses on death and cemeteries at DePaul University in Chicago.