Laura is currently a PhD Candidate in the field of Management and Development of Cultural Heritage, at IMT Institute for Advanced Studies Lucca, in Italy. Here she is conducting her research on the Critical Assessment of Mechanisms of Heritisation of the Communist Past, by analysing contested case studies for preservation in Bucharest and Berlin. Her areas of interests range from mechanisms of heritigisation, value creation, preservation, conservation, museum studies, to memory and identity building discourses, Communism and Eastern Europe. She receveid her Master's Degree in World Heritage Studies (UNESCO) at the Brandenburg University in Cottbus Germany, Bachelor Degree in Arts and Italian at the Ruhr - University in Bochum, Germany and the Diploma Degree in History at the Bucharest University, Romania. Publications: Assessing the cultural value of the communist legacy in Romania. In: Heritage 2014: Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Heritage and Sustainable Development. Green Lines Institute for Sustainable Development, pp. 531-540. ISBN 978-989-98013-6-3 (2014) Value creation mechanisms and the heritisation of the communist legacy in Romania. In: The Right to [World] Heritage: conference proceedings. IAWHP, pp. 8-20. ISBN 978-3-00-047536-8 (2014)