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.

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The UCLA years have been some of 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.

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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.

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And even before then, i was a student at the Liceo Classico of the Collegio Gallio in Como, genuinely not believing my luck that I got to go to school every day and hear some amazing teachers (Padre Adriano Lomazzi! The Egyptologist Dr. Angelo Sesana!) talk about literature, philosophy, and art. 

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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. Seven (!) years later, the Habilitation is done (I am now Privatdozentin), the book has come out (finally!), and my German, is, I would say, somewhat improved.