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Meet and Greet

About Me
selfie of a woman wearing a fedora, a dark top, and a green backpack, on a hiking trail in southern California

This is me, happily hiking in the Santa Monica mountains back in 2015. I did my Ph.D. in Indo-European Studies at UCLA (2009-2015), and then stayed on for a couple of years as a Lecturer, working for the Linguistics Department and the Program in Indo-European Studies.

The UCLA years have easily been the most fun, stimulating, and rewarding of my career. I got used to the LA weather in about five minutes and I still struggle with the concept of winter (despite having grown up in Northern Italy, on the rainy shores of Lake Como). I truly cannot say enough good things about the friends, teachers, mentors, and students who crossed my path there.

Before UCLA, I did a BA and an MA in Classics at the Catholic University of Milan. I am so grateful for the training I received there: that's where I became interested in Linguistics (thanks to a smashing course on Latin Grammar taught by Prof. Massimiliano Rivoltella), and where I became a Homerist (thanks to Prof. Mario Cantilena's Seminario Omerico). That's also where I possibly ruined my eyesight staying up at night, translating Greek under the stars (noctes vigilare serenas), and was at the same time the only and the worst student in my Sanskrit class.

In August 2006 I attended the first Leiden Summer School in Indo-European Linguistics, and it changed my life. I decided I wanted to become an Indo-Europeanist. Two years later, I moved to Leiden for an MA in IE Linguistics, and from Leiden I moved to the US, to start my Ph.D.

 

In September 2017, I moved to Munich, Germany, to start a position as a Wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin and to write my Habilitationsthesis under the supervision of Prof. Olav Hackstein. Six years later, the Habilitation is done (I am now Privatdozentin), the book is coming out (any minute now! I promise!), and I am still here.

Education

Habilitation (venia Historisch-Vergleichende und Indogermanische Sprachwissenschaft and
Griechische Sprachwissenschaft)

Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, München

Thesis: Homer’s Living Language: A Multidisciplinary Approach to Formularity, Dialect, and Creativity in Oral-Traditional Poetry

Supervisor: Olav Hackstein.

2021

Ph.D. in Indo-European Studies,

University of California, Los Angeles

Dissertation: Constructions: A New Approach to Formularity, Discourse, and Syntax in Homer

Advisor: Brent Vine.

MA in Comparative Indo-European Linguistics,

Leiden University

Cum laude. Thesis: Future Tense in the Rig Veda

Advisor: Alexander Lubotsky.

Laurea Specialistica (2-year MA) in Classics,

Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milano

Summa cum laude. Thesis: Per un approccio cognitivo alla composizione orale

Advisor: Mario Cantilena.

Laurea Triennale (3-year BA) in Classics,

Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milano. 

Summa cum laude. Thesis: Coesione e coerenza in alcuni libri dell’Iliade: un esame di linguistica testuale

Advisor: Mario Cantilena.

Academic Positions

Wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin (2017-2019)/ Habilitandin (2017-2021)

/Privatdozentin (2022-now),

Lehrstuhl für Historische und Indogermanische Sprachwissenschaft,

Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München

Awards
and Grants

Juan de la Cierva Post-Doctoral Fellowship, University of Navarra (declined).

Dissertation Year Fellowship, UCLA

Diebold Fellow, Program in Indo-European Studies, UCLA

UCLA Chancellor’s Prize Summer Mentorship Award

Linguistic Society of America Summer Institute Fellow

Huygens Fellow at Leiden University

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