Silvia Alaura studied Near Eastern Archaeology and Hittitology at the University of Florence, where in 1998 she obtained a Ph.D. with a dissertation on the cuneiform tablet collections at Boğazköy-Ḫattuša (Türkiye). As a fellow of the Gerda-Henkel-Stiftung, she carried out postdoctoral research at the Altorientalisches Seminar of the Freie Universität (FU) Berlin.
She is actually Senior Researcher at the Istituto di Scienze del Patrimonio Culturale (ISPC) ‒ Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR), Rome, and Adjunct Professor at Sapienza Università di Roma.
Her research interests explore Hittite culture in its various aspects. Besides her competences in philology and archaeology, she is also an expert in the history of Ancient Near Eastern studies. She is involved in several international interdisciplinary projects concerning the history of the rediscovery of the ancient cultures of Western Asia. Since 2014 she directs the project "Gruppo di Ricerca Interdisciplinare di Storia degli Studi Orientali" (GRISSO). She is presently the Principal Investigator of the Italian Project PRIN 2022 PNRR "Dialogues between ancient Western Asia and us. Untold stories from Italian collections and archives" (DiWA). She also coordinates the Rome CNR Research Unit of the Project PRIN 2022 "Ancient Landscapes of Anatolia in the Bronze Age" (ALandA).
She has been visiting scholar at the University of Oxford (Wolfson College) and at the Yale University (Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations – Yale Babylonian Collection).
She is editor-in chief of the peer-reviewed monographic series "Documenta Asiana – Collana di studi sull’Anatolia e l’Asia Anteriore antica" (DA) (Edizioni Quasar, Roma), co-editor in chief and founder of the newly established peer-reviewed monographic series "History of Ancient Near Eastern Studies and Egyptology" (HANESE) (De Gruyter Brill), and member of the Advisory Board of the peer-reviewed international journals "Studi Micenei ed Egeo-Anatolici" Nuova Serie (SMEA NS) (Edizioni Quasar, Roma) and ASA (Ankara Sosyal Bilimler Üniversitesi).
She is member of the Deutsche Orient-Gesellschaft (DOG); The American Oriental Society (AOS); American Society of Overseas Research (ASOR); European Association of Archaeologists (EAA); Society for the History of the Humanities (SHOH); International Council of Museums (ICOM); World Philology Union (WPU).