Born in an Italian-Brazilian family in São Paulo, Brazil, different languages and cultures have always been part of my life. One can get to know different cultures, customs, and peoples through language, so I decided to work professionally in the field and help students open their worlds to these different realities. In 2010 I received a BA in Languages and Literature - Portuguese and English from the Universidade Federal de São Carlos. The following year I received a Fulbright scholarship to teach Portuguese in the United States, and after that I earned both an MA and a PhD in Romance Languages - Portuguese and Spanish from the University of Georgia. While at the University of Georgia I created the magazine Fala Aí, in which students and speakers of Portuguese had the opportunity to learn more about and share their knowledge of the Lusophone world. At UChicago I am the editor-in-chief of Revista Væranda.
Teaching Portuguese and Spanish at the University of Chicago since 2020, I look for opportunities to bring authentic experiences with language and culture into the classroom by means of online videos, podcasts, video games, etc. I am currently working on a project to develop Virtual-Reality-enabled materials to be used in Portuguese and Spanish classes at UChicago.
In 2023, I received the “Janel M. Mueller Award for Excellence in Pedagogy” from the Division of the Humanities. It was exciting to see how my efforts teaching languages at the University of Chicago have helped impact students' language journeys and forward the mission of the University.