Gaetano Manfredi, Italian university professor and politician, has been serving as mayor of Naples since 2021. Born in a small village near Campania, called Ottaviano in 1964, young Gaetano was always interested in architecture and engineering. This passion later inspired him to pursue his academic development in that direction, which led to his graduation as Structural Engineer. Because of his great talent and expertise, he became a professor at University of Naples “Federico II”. Parallel with his career as professor, Gaetano Manfredi also started his development in politics. In 2020, he became Minister of University and Research. In the following year, he ran for the position of Naples mayor and won his first mandate. At the start of his mandate as mayor, Gaetano Manfredi laid out a general plan of action for Naples. His strategy consists of several major departments or focuses, which are highly connected with the structural composition of the city. The first focus is on improvement of infrastructure around the city, primarily the public transport. There are plans on completing the ring of metro line 1 and the start of construction for metro line 6. Mayor Gaetano also talked about renewal of the bus fleet and training of new drivers. The second focus is increasing growth of jobs and combating unemployment. One of the desires of mayor Manfredi is to establish Naples as a city full of opportunities and attractive for investors. The third forcus is closely related to his position as commissioner of Bagnoli-Coroglio, which is part of his position as mayor: the relaunch of Bagnoli Urbanistica project. This project will reshape and urbanize Bagnoli part of the city, giving it a new look and modernizing it. The fourth focus aims at the port of Naples. Mayor of Naples talked about redevelopment of the port, which will be supplemented with innovation and new industrialization. This will be further supported by investments into the waterfront of the city, which will be a new meeting area for the residents of the city. In the end, he will also promote restructuring of abandoned public buildings. This will include their adaptation, from interior to facade and exterior. Through this effort, mayor Manfredi can display his expertise in structural engineering and give the city new marvels of architecture. However, his most notable work comes from academic circles. As a professor and researcher, mayor of Naples published a great number of researches and analyses. All of these are closely connected with high seismic activity of the area around Naples. His academic work mostly focuses on preparedness of cities for this kind of problem. Simulations conducted by him, analysis of the base isolation system and similar texts proved beneficial to the city over the years, since many of these ideas were implemented in reality even prior to his political career. (photo credit: wikipedia)