Valentina Calderai is a Professor of Private Law and Comparative Private Law at the University of Pisa, where she also directs the Private Law Curriculum of the Ph.D. Program in Legal Sciences. She holds the Jean Monnet Chair in European Health Law and Development (2023–2026), funded by the EU Commission.

Prof. Calderai earned Master's degrees in Philosophy (Urbino), Law (Florence), and a Ph.D. in Private Law from Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna, all with summa cum laude honors. Prior to her academic career, she practiced as a lawyer in Italy and was awarded a Max Weber Fellowship at the European University Institute of Florence (2009–2010).

Her research interests focus on European contract law, private law theory, the regulation of health technologies, and the intersection of contract and family law, with a particular emphasis on women's rights. She is currently the Principal Investigator (PI) of A Legal Framework and Feasibility Study for Open Access Biobanks (ALeF), an applied Law & Bioengineering research project funded by the Italian Ministry of Research.

At the University of Pisa, she teaches courses on Private Law, Comparative Law, and Biotechnology Regulation, and has supervised or is supervising several PhD researchers.

As a Council Member of the European Law Institute (ELI), she serves as an assessor for the Principles for the Governance of Biometrics and Advanced Choices projects.