Faculty
Simari, Elizabeth
About
Elizabeth Simari holds an MA in Italian Literature from Middlebury College in Florence (2010). At Middlebury, she studied the intersection of Italian literature and food history. From 2010-2016, she worked as a journalist, translator, and graphic designer for the English edition of the Vatican newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano. In 2013, she earned a sommelier certificate from the Italian Sommelier Association and began developing courses on wine for university students in Rome. She has taught the Rome Center's Summer Fusion course “Discovering Italy: Food, Wine & Photography of Rome and Abruzzo” since 2016. She gave private wine tastings and food tours around Rome for many years and has worked as a translator for Mark Bittman and as a food writer for The New York Times. Most recently, she researched Nancy Pelosi's Italian heritage for the book Madam Speaker by Susan Page, USA Today's Washington Bureau Chief. She has also taught at a number of other American universities in Rome. She currently works as Communications Coordinator, overseeing the Rome Center's website, social media and other internal and external communications.
Degrees
- MA, Italian Literature, Middlebury College, Florence
- BA, Italian and English, University of Notre Dame, Indiana
Research Interests
- Modernization and globalization of Italian food
- Immigrant food culture
- Fermentation