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Italian Studies

Sills Hall Directory

Alumni and Careers

Alexa Gray headshot

Alexa Gray

Class of: 2019

Location: Somerville, Massachusetts

Major(s): Italian Studies

“Learning Italian at Bowdoin opened doors for me that I otherwise would never have had access to.”

What have you been up to since graduating from Bowdoin?

After graduating from Bowdoin in 2019, I completed a Watson Fellowship, traveling to Norway and New Zealand to explore how cultural values of family impact both criminal legal systems and personal conceptions of justice. I spent four months in Norway working in a reentry café and bike shop with incarcerated individuals and three months in New Zealand living with and learning from Māori restorative justice facilitators. After my fellowship, I attended Harvard Law School, graduating in 2023. I now work as a staff attorney at Northeast Legal Aid, providing free civil legal services to people with criminal records or those re-entering from incarceration.

Why Italian studies?

Having taken four years of Spanish in high school, I had no connection to Italy or plans to study Italian when I came to Bowdoin. I remember attending an academic fair and seeing how warm and welcoming the Italian professors and students were. When there wasn't room in the Spanish class I wanted, I thought, why not try Italian? I was drawn in by the genuine care from the professors, the small class sizes, and the strong sense of community within the program. After my first class, I never left.

I ended up studying abroad in Rome during my junior year and returned that summer through a Global Citizens Fellowship from the McKeen Center to work in an alternative incarceration center. The program housed incarcerated women with their children in the community rather than in prison, valuing familial connection over traditional notions of punishment. I knew I wanted to work with incarcerated individuals but faced age-related restrictions in the US. What I learned that summer inspired my Watson project and my advanced independent study with Professor Anna Rein, in which I compared the societal and legal treatment of incarcerated mothers in Italy and the United States.

To this day, I reflect on what I learned from the Italian Studies department at Bowdoin, my time in Rome, and the incarcerated mothers I had the privilege of working with. These experiences have been integral in shaping my path toward reentry legal services, a field I am deeply passionate about and find incredibly fulfilling.

Katie Kurtz

Katie Kurtz

Class of: 2024

Major(s): Italian and Environmental Studies Coordinate

Minor(s): Urban Studies

I graduated from Bowdoin in 2024 and am currently living in Palermo, Sicily on a Fulbright grant. Coming into Bowdoin, I knew I wanted to take Italian and maintain my language skills. What I gained from the Italian department at Bowdoin, however, went way beyond my expectations. Thanks to Italian at Bowdoin, I started researching green space management in Italy and have been fortunate to live in Perugia and Palermo to continue this research. Now in Palermo on my Fulbright, I am researching bottom-up green space management practices and social infrastructures throughout the city.  I spend my days interviewing locals, observing events in local parks, and writing journal articles.

The Bowdoin Italian department was as second home for me on campus and gave me the confidence to pursue my dreams of living abroad. From reading gialli, Italian crime novels about Sicily to novels written by female writers, I gained an understanding of Italian history and culture through literature (and have since gone on to visit many of the places in Sicily we read about!). Outside of classes, the faculty challenged me to combine seemingly disparate passions—urban studies and Italian—leading to my first journal article, Prendersi Cura: Taking Care of Nature in Perugia, Italy,  published in Land Use Policy and now my Fulbright grant. 

Lucas DiCerbo

Lucas DiCerbo

Class of: 2023

Major(s): Biochemistry

Minor(s): Italian Studies

After graduating with a minor in Italian Studies, I was fortunate to receive a Fulbright research fellowship in Naples, Italy. I currently live in the historic center of Naples and study chemistry with a research group at Federico II, the city’s flagship university. The short- and long-term benefits of this transformative life experience are too numerous to count. I have expanded my linguistic abilities, grown as a scientist, and connected with other international students over a mutual admiration – and, at times, incredulity – for the city of Naples and its unique way of life. 

I credit my participation in this amazing opportunity mainly to Bowdoin’s Italian Studies program: in addition to opening the doors that would make a Fulbright fellowship possible, my mentors in the department nurtured in me the desire for a linguistic and cultural awareness of a beautiful country to which I will forever be connected. I originally planned to stay in Naples for a year, the original duration of my fellowship; but I have found my time there so enjoyable that I hope to continue my work and pursue a master’s degree in chemical sciences.
Bram Hollis

Bram Hollis

Class of: 2023

Major(s): Anthropology, Italian Studies

While I didn’t enter Bowdoin expecting to graduate in Italian, I found the department one of the most welcoming and intellectually intriguing at Bowdoin. In particular, my work with Professor Hall on Ariosto was a highlight of my time there.

After graduating, I am spending the 23-24 school year teaching English in Bergamo, Italy. Studying Italian at Bowdoin has not only given me an incredible appreciation for the language, art, and literature that I am surrounded by, but has also allowed me the flexibility to communicate and work with teachers outside of the English department at my school to incorporate language skills and practice into other subjects. When I’m not teaching, I have been pursuing my primary passion of cooking, not only exploring the various cuisines of Italy but working in different kitchens as well!
Nothando Khumalo

Nothando Khumalo

Class of: 2023

Major(s): Computer Science, Italian Studies

I started taking Italian at Bowdoin for fun, but quickly realized all the opportunities that Italian could give me at Bowdoin and beyond. As an Italian, Computer Science double major, I completed an honors thesis that used natural language processing to predict the authorship of the ballads in The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio. With Prof. Crystal Hall, I learned how Italian literature could provoke interesting computational problems.

After graduating, I was awarded a Fulbright grant to conduct computational chemistry research at the University of Padua in Italy. The amazing Italian professors I had at Bowdoin gave me a fluency in Italian that have allowed me to hit  the ground running in Padua. I can communicate confidently with Italians in lab and volunteer at schools teaching children about water and air. In my free time, I am learning the Veneto dialect and running with other students. Sometimes, I try out my Veneto at the local butcher and cheese shops. Taking Italian at Bowdoin changed the trajectory of my life for the better, and I couldn’t be more thankful.
Kate McKee

Kate McKee

Class of: 2022

Major(s): Italian Studies

I graduated from Bowdoin with an Italian studies major in 2022 and have since moved to the UK, where I have been studying Italian at the University of Oxford. I graduated from the masters in Italian in 2023 with a thesis on smells in Dante’s Commedia, a topic that I had initially stumbled upon in Professor Saiber’s Purgatorio seminar in my senior year at Bowdoin. I am now in my first year of a doctorate in Italian at Oxford, where I am more broadly studying smell in the works of due- and trecento Italian poets, with a focus on Dante and Boccaccio.

I initially stumbled on Italian at Bowdoin when visiting an open house during course selection in my first year. I remember being greeted by Professor Gavioli, a host of biscotti, and freshly-brewed espresso. I was hooked on Italian right then and there! I continued to take Italian language and culture courses throughout my four years, including the pandemic years, culminating the major with an honors thesis on Santa Caterina di Bologna’s medieval Italian writing and bread making. The skills I developed throughout the process of studying Italian at Bowdoin—not only learning the language and literature but also thinking critically in a new language, becoming more confident in public speaking, cultivating cultural awareness, and working collaboratively with my peers—are skills that are most crucial to the work that I do now. The dedication of the professoresse and the warmth of the Italian community at Bowdoin were undoubtedly the highlights of my undergraduate years.
Sabrina Lin

Sabrina Lin

Class of: 2021

Major(s): Art History, Visual Arts, Italian Studies

I discovered Italian during my first semester at Bowdoin, quickly fell in love with the richness of Italian culture, art, history and never looked back! Classes in the Italian Department were undoubtedly some of my academic highlights at Bowdoin, which also intersected with my pursuit of Art History in powerful and unexpected ways. In addition to spending a semester abroad in Siena, my coursework in Italian literature has been deeply influential to my scholarship of contemporary art—studying Dante with Prof. Saiber alerted me to the nuances and challenges of translation, while reading postcolonial feminist fiction with Prof. Gavioli made me attuned to structures of power and access.

After graduating in 2021, I accepted a position at the Bowdoin College Museum of Art as the inaugural Post-Baccalaureate curatorial fellow. In my role, I assist with collections research, class visits, and also oversee the Museum’s student internship and campus engagement programs. I had the wonderful opportunity to organize my own exhibition, Turn of Phrase: Language and Translation in Global Contemporary Art (December 2022 to June 2023), which served as my capstone project and brings together my love of languages and contemporary art!
Holden Turner headshot

Holden Turner

Class of: 2021

Location: Venice, Veneto, Italy

Major(s): Earth and Oceanographic Science, Environmental Studies

Minor(s): Italian Studies

“Because of the flexible nature of Italian Studies, I was able to unite these passions in my graduate studies.”

What have you been up to since graduating from Bowdoin?

I completed an Italian minor at Bowdoin while also pursuing an ES/EOS coordinate major. Riley House was my home during my senior year! Since graduating, my studies have included a Masters in Environmental Humanities at Università Ca’ Foscari (Venice, Italy; graduated 2024) and a PhD in Modern Languages and Literature at Johns Hopkins University (Baltimore, Maryland; started 2025).

Why Italian studies?

I use my experience in Italian language and culture to speak with experts on issues of sea-level rise and adaptation in Italy, and I hope to use what I learn in cross-cultural conversation to rewire climate change narratives in the US and Europe toward action for more livable futures.

Sofia Trogu

Sofia Trogu

Class of: 2019

Major(s): Neuroscience, Italian Studies

I immediately fell in love with the Italian department from the first day I stepped into Riley House for the Open House before classes started freshman year. Whether it was the biscotti and caffè offered or the welcoming introduction by Professor Saiber, I knew I had found a second home. I grew up speaking Italian with my Sardinian father at home, but I wanted to enrich my knowledge of the language and the culture by taking Italian grammar and seminar courses.

During my four years at Bowdoin, I enjoyed learning about contemporary Italian history and Dante’s La Commedia, but the true highlight of my experience was traveling to Sicilia for 10 days with my Sicilian literature class and Professor Gavioli. After graduating, I continued living in Maine for a few years, working at a health data analytics company in Portland. Recently, I decided to return to school and am currently pursuing a Master’s Degree in Data Science at the Università degli Studi di Padova in Italia! Not only am I continuing my professional growth, but I am also reconnecting with my Italian roots and furthering my Italian studies, thanks to the inspiration I found in Riley House in a small town in Maine.
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