Experienced Founder and Director of Siena Italian Studies which hosts educational exchange programs for undergraduate and graduate students in Siena. Polyglot and citizen of the world, the professional and human purpose of her life is to educate to the appreciation of otherness to live peacefully in the diverse societies of the globalized era. Passionate expert in the field of linguistic and intercultural mediation, inclusion, and integration with a strong dedication for pedagogical innovation in educational curricula aiming at the development of intercultural competence. Pioneer in the introduction of service-learning pedagogy in Italy in the early 2000s. The current focus of her pedagogical innovative work revolves around: service-learning, reflective education, intercultural competence assessment, RFCDC, digital transformation. COIL, virtual service-learning. She invented the ‘Full-Immersion: Culture, Content and Service’ approach to develop reflective intercultural competence and the RICA Model for its assessment. She has been an ambassador of the EUFICCS approach worldwide, contributing to research in the field of reflective education and service-learning, and co-authored the book L’educazione riflessiva interculturale: L’approccio FICCS allo studio della lingua e cultura italiana. She holds a degree in Translation and Simultaneous Interpreting in German and Russian, and taught foreign languages and Italian as a second language for many years. At Siena Italian Studies she introduced the use of Reflecting Writing and taught the course for many years to both undergraduate and graduate students. More recently she founded multi-destination Programs in Siena/Brussels and Siena/Yaounde. While Siena remains the educational center where SIS classes are delivered, in these Programs students spend the second part of the semester interring in a EU organization in Brussels or servicing in an NGO in Yaounde.