Michela Vanda Caserini, PhD, is a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Architecture and Urban Studies (DAStU), Politecnico di Milano. Her work uses photography and hand drawing as critical tools to investigate self-built and vulnerable dwelling conditions in segregated urban contexts. Her research is grounded in long-term ethnographic fieldwork across different urban contexts, including Maputo, Mozambique, where she examined self-constructed living environments through drawing and photography as methods of spatial analysis. Alongside her academic research, she develops photojournalistic projects addressing social and environmental transformations in the Global South. Her photographic work has been internationally awarded and exhibited.