I am presently an Academic Advisor for the Pre-Engineering Program in the Division of General Studies at the University of Illinois. I assist high-achieving freshmen and sophomores in getting in to the College of Engineering, as well as help students discern long term life and vocational goals.I previously served as a Lecturer in Italian at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, teaching courses in Italian language and Medieval and Renaissance literature and maintain an active research profile in the field.I recently completed a PhD in Italian from the University of Illinois, specializing in Medieval Italian literature. My dissertation, “True Flesh: Measure, Pilgrimage, and Perfecting the Human in Dante's 'Commedia,'" brings together literary, historical, and anthropological perspectives to recuperate medieval conceptions of and experience of space within Dante’s Commedia. I argue that the bodily experience of Dante’s protagonist in the poem is the text’s core expression of its various theological and political discourses.