Stefano Lelii, M.A. is a native Italian. He completed his B.A. in Cultural Anthropology at the University of Rome in 2008, writing his Bachelor's thesis on “Religious identity and migration: Anthropological reflections on the Bangladeshi case.” During his studies he carried out a research on the “Durga Puja”-Festival in Rome, studying how this religious event is celebrated by the immigrants from West Bengal, India, and Bangladesh in the context of migration. In 2006 he took part in an internship at the Italian Embassy in Dhaka, Bangladesh, where he conducted the research on the topic of his Bachelor thesis. After studying the Bengali language at the Institute of Modern Languages at the University of Dhaka and at the Department of Oriental Studies at the University of Rome “La Sapienza” he acquired proficiency in the Bengali language. Before coming to Germany he worked as an interpreter-consultant for the Italian Ministry of Interior in cooperation with the UNHCR-commission in Italy, assisting asylum seekers from Bangladesh. Furthermore, he was engaged as a volunteer at the Caritas Diocesana in Rome, Italy, helping refugees and migrants from different countries. In 2012 he completed his Master in Medical Anthropology at the South Asia Institute at the University of Heidelberg with the thesis “Local Practices, Perceptions and Social Aspects Related to Arsenic-contaminated Water: an Ethnographic Case Study in Abhaynagar Upazila, Bangladesh.” At the moment he is working as student research assistant at the Institute of Public Health and at Department of Infectious Diseases, Section Clinical Tropical Medicine at the University Hospital Heidelberg and besides, for the Modern South Asian Languages and Literatures of the South Asia Institute, University of Heidelberg, Germany.
