She received her Ed.D. from Columbia University and has studied at New York University, Long Island University, Sarah Lawrence College (in Florence, Italy), Brooklyn College, and the Universita’ di Pescara in Italy. Her poetry has been published in Voices in Italian Americana and her City-as-Text articles in a National Honors Institute journal. Her numerous awards include: the Yeats Scholarship in Sligo, Ireland and two National Endowment for the Humanities awards to Harvard and Columbia University.