Elgin K. Eckert is Academic Director and Professor of Italian Literature, History, and Media Studies at the Umbra Institute.
She got her undergraduate degree at CUNY-Brooklyn College and has been at the Umbra Institute since 2010. Her research
interests include cultural memory in Italian literature and the representations of organized crime in film and on the small
screen. She has authored numerous peer-reviewed articles on those subjects and is co-editor of the book Representing
Italian Food (Bloomsbury, 2016).

Elisa Ascione is the Coordinator of the Food & Sustainability Studies Program at the Umbra Institute. Elisa teaches the
courses “Sustainable Food Production in Italy: Local Traditions and Global Transformations”, “The Anthropology of Food
and Eating: Understanding Self and Others”, and “The History and Culture of Food in Italy”. She has received a BA in
Cultural Anthropology and an MA in Refugee Studies from the University of East London, UK, and a Ph.D. in
Anthropology and Ethnology from Università degli Studi di Perugia. Elisa has conducted research and published on the
intersection of migration, class and gender in employment in Italy, and on food and cultural heritage.

Housing Coordinator

Student Services Co-coordinator

Jacopo Bernardini is the Academic Programs Assistant at the Umbra Institute, where he has worked since October 2018. Previously, he worked for six years as a Postdoctoral Researcher of Sociology and Methodology of Social Research at the Faculty of Political Science of the University of Perugia. He has published several academic articles and books on Age and Life Cycle, Transition to Adulthood, Generational Conflicts, and the Information Age.

U.S. University Relations & Marketing Development

Arcadia University Program Manager

[email protected]