Since 2016, I have assisted dozens of people in obtaining their Italian citizenship or visas for Italy, transcribed and translated precious family documents, and assisted my clients in navigating the complex and often mind-boggling world of Italian bureaucracy.
I am also a passionate language educator specializing in teaching children and helping multilingual families figure out their unique linguistic strategy. As a relentless advocate for diverse and multilingual literature and education, I have spent countless hours volunteering for translation journals, most notably Asymptote Journal, and translating poetry from and into Italian, English, and occasionally Russian.
Since 2016, I have assisted dozens of people in obtaining their Italian citizenship or visas for Italy, transcribed and translated precious family documents, and assisted my clients in navigating the complex and often mind-boggling world of Italian bureaucracy.
I am also a passionate language educator specializing in teaching children and helping multilingual families figure out their unique linguistic strategy. As a relentless advocate for diverse and multilingual literature and education, I have spent countless hours volunteering for translation journals, most notably Asymptote Journal, and translating poetry from and into Italian, English, and occasionally Russian.
After an experience as an exchange student at UC Berkeley, I moved to Rhode Island in 2009 to attend graduate school at Brown University. Like a true Rhode Islander, I basically never left!
My graduate school education has been crucial in becoming the person I am today. My training at Italy's second-oldest university, the University of Padua, had been rigorous but somewhat narrow: I graduated in History of the Italian language with a focus on Translation Studies and an extensive background in philology, linguistics, and literature. However, it was grad school that truly expanded my horizons. I discovered new ways to cultivate my passion about how people from different cultures and backgrounds relate to one another, and how this knowledge might be applied to daily life in our diverse global society.
While at Brown, I fell in love with second language teaching theory and practice. In my language teaching, I use my rigorous theoretical training, my fun and creative side, and my attitude to create and cultivate meaningful relationships.
After a brief stint at Villanova University, I realized that pure academic life was not for me: I yearned for work that had a more immediate and concrete impact on people’s lives.
That’s when I started volunteering at Asymptote a leading journal of global translated literature, and began to work as a translator for the Italian-American community applying for Italian citizenship.
The same year (2016), I became pregnant with my first child. True to my nature, I quickly dove into books and webinars, learning the ins and outs of multilingual education. At the time, I began giving private lessons to children learning Italian as a second language. My two other children arrived in quick succession, and those sleepless years were devoted to studying, observing, inventing games, and recording words.
It was during the 2020 pandemic that I had a vision for a school for Italian-speaking and Italian-loving children in Rhode Island. I held the first course in the Fall of 2021, and many others since then.
Parents and families began asking me for advice about their own family language situation, and I was always happy to help them. And that’s how my most recent service, my multilingual family consultation, came to be.
Ph.D. in Italian Studies, Brown University M.A. in Italian Philology and Literature, University of Padua B.A. in Classics, University of Padua
American Translators’ Association (ATA) American Literary Translators’ Association (ALTA)
My Cantonese is basic, but I also have various degrees of proficiency in: English, Russian, French, Spanish and German, plus Ancient Greek and Latin. I started writing a multilingual journal in the sixth grade.
My translation of a poem by Anna Akhmatova was a winner of the 2021 All-Russia State Library for Foreign Literature and The Institute for Literary Translation.
Our family is scattered over four continents: we have family in North America, Europe, Asia, and New Zealand. Our children are fluent in English, Italian and Cantonese and can communicate easily with all our family members. My own Cantonese, on the other hand, is still at the survival level…
Running a 50 km trail race in Vermont!
I’m a practitioner and certified teacher of yoga and pranayama (breathing practices). Up until I had children, I would wake up before dawn almost every day to meditate and practice. I met my husband at yoga 🙂
I love to cook and bake but I wasn’t made to follow recipes. Sometimes I get lucky, sometimes I end up with inedible blobs. My favorite baking show is the Great British Bake-Off, of course.
