Julia D'Aleandro Meyers comes to the University of Pennsylvania's Italian Ph.D. Program by way of Temple University, where she graduated summa cum laude earning her B.A. with a double major in Italian and South Asian Studies. She has been the recipient of the Sara M. Halpen Award in the Humanities as well as the Marthe LaVallée-Williams Study Abroad Award. Her special research interest is Italian migrant literature. In addition to her studies in Italian, Julia enjoys her work as program coordinator for the annual Startalk Hindi-Urdu Immersion Program for the West Windsor-Plainsboro Regional School District in New Jersey.