Department: Chemistry

How long have you been at SIUE? Since 2003

What do you like most about SIUE ? The educational environment-attitude towards students, supportive department

Areas of Research Interest: Organic Chemistry- Complex Carbohydrate Research, Synthetic Methodology

Country of Origin: Italy

Language(s) spoken other than English: Italian

How long have you been in the US? Since 1998

What do you find to be the biggest difference between the US and your home country?

Education & Health Care- Free in Italy-duty of the government for the citizens

Oral Exams in Italy-From the time that a child begins schooling to high school

I high school teachers move from class to class, not the students

Italy- In college, specific times are scheduled for oral exams. A student will appear in front of a board for an oral exam. This encourages self-learning and oral competence!

In the US with written exams- encourages cheating, students will "perform and delete" the information.

In Italy- 5-year Master's program, no bachelor's degree, programs of study are set-up in high school. If you want to study medicine, you go to medical school.

If you want to study pharmacy, you go to pharmacy school. There is no "pre-med" or "pre-pharmacy." There are no electives (there are electives within area of studies, similar to our electives for graduate students, but no electives in different and completely unrelated field (like sports) or general education credits in college.

Very Passionate about...

Dissection in high school just to learn anatomy is completely useless and barbaric. It teaches kids to not have empathy or respect for life.

Religion and how it influences society- Church and religion should be seperate, people are more open-minded in Italy

US is the only country that circumcises

In the US- Interaction and social support is great !

Interesting Fact:

I enjoy spending time with my family. My husband is from Russia- Alexei- and we met in England while in doctoral program. Alexei is a faculty member at UMSL where he teaches Organic Chemistry also! We have two children -son- Paolo (5 years), daughter- Chiara (2 years). I love to dance- any style and love biking too.