Alumni
The Department of Italian is eager to hear from our alumni. We hope this section will become a good resource for our former students who would like to share their good news, memories, and accomplishments with us and their former classmates. Please send any updates and information to lc368@georgetown.edu.
Nathaniel Lee ('09)
Nathaniel Lee's passion for Italian culture led him to work for Gucci's Milan headquarters.
When I started my freshman year at Georgetown, I took a language placement test with the intention of improving the Italian I had absorbed during recent summer trips to Italy. What started as a course for proficiency quickly turned into a major, and by my sophomore year I was enrolled in a class taught by renowned author Claudio Magris. I spent the following year at Milan’s Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, where I applied my Italian through coursework that immersed me among local students. Upon graduation from Georgetown, I returned to Milan for an internship in public relations. This experience allowed me to gain an understanding of Italian media and to develop a working relationship with a variety of journalists. Through contact with a Georgetown alumna, I joined Gucci’s Milan headquarters, where I currently work in public relations. My language skills have played an invaluable role in my career. I use Italian on a daily basis, whether to analyze an editor's review or to translate a press release. Above all, I approach my work with the cross-cultural perspective I gained through my studies at Georgetown.
Charlotte Lowrey ('09)
Charlotte Lowrey's Italian language skills became an integral part of her career and continue to open doors.
I graduated from Georgetown in the spring of 2009 with a degree in Italian and a minor in Theology. I chose to major in Italian because I loved the language's broader academic applications - especially to history and the arts. Little did I know how useful my language skills would be to me after I left the academic world and entered the workforce! After Georgetown, I found myself working for the finance department of Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation in New York City, which oversees the various Guggenheim museums around the world. My italian language skills came of great use as I helped to translate documents from the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice and communicated easily in a multicultural office. My language skills opened the door for me to a career in the arts and I am happy to say that I continue to use my Italian in my post-graduate studies in the History of Art at the Courtauld Institute in London.
Emily Langer ('06)
Emily Langer received a Fulbright to continue working on the topic of her senior essay.
Emily Langer (COL ’06) works for The Washington Post, where she has used her Italian for everything from translation to reporting on the death of an Italian prince known as “His Tremendousness.”
At Georgetown, Emily worked as a research assistant to Professor Laura Benedetti through the GUROP program and for the Italian Department through work study. She spent her junior year at the University of Florence, where, apart from reading Dante and Boccaccio, she studied William Faulkner. Emily wrote about that class, the highlight of her year abroad, for The Post.
Emily recently received Fulbright award to spend nine months in Italy researching the Risiera di San Sabba, a Nazi concentration camp in Trieste. This project, which she began as a sophomore when she received the Lisa J. Raines Fellowship, was the topic of her senior honors thesis in Italian.
Christopher Mannix ('04)
Christopher Mannix shares his stories of how the Italian he learned at Georgetown has benefitted in the advancement of his career.
I started my career as an intern for the world famous fashion house, Gucci (an internship made possible by way of an agreement between Georgetown's Italian Department and the company), and in fact worked, lived, and studied in Florence in anticipation of my B.A. After graduation, I worked as a strategy consultant for IBM where my mastery of other languages and understanding of multiculturalism, once again thanks to Georgetown, were quickly identified as assets and the company soon stationed me in San Juan, Puerto Rico to work as a liaison with the Island's government. In Italian we say that "da cosa nasce cosa" and it was my work in Puerto Rico that caught the attention of another company, Pearson Education, which then recruited me, and where I work today. Georgetown taught me to understand and appreciate Italian language, culture, and literature, and that experience has helped me to engage and work with clients in the United States, Canada, and the Caribbean, as they come from a variety of cultural and linguistic backgrounds.
Angela Vannucci ('03)
Angela Vannucci's language skills allowed her to work in Italy for five years.
After studying at the Università degli Studi di Firenze during my junior year, I received my degree in Spanish and Italian and returned to Italy. I left the States with the idea of living one more year abroad in Italy to truly perfect my Italian language skills. That year turned into five years thanks to my multilingual communication skills, which opened many job opportunities.
While in Tuscany, I managed the Tuscan branch of Context Travel, a sustainable tourism company that specialized in didactic walking seminars. After working a few years at Conext Travel I joined the marketing department of The Glocal Forum, an NGO aimed at promoting peace and development through city-to-city cooperation. I took on a vaierty of side projects, which included editing reports for the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization's Initiative on Soaring Food Prices, teaching English lessons, performing Italian-English translations, and updating the Insight Guide to Tuscany and the Tuscany and Umbria Berlitz Pocket Guide.
I am currently an M.A. candidate in Latin American Studies and International Economics at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies.
Erica Nonni ('03)
Erica Nonni's major in Italian helped her acquire a position with the New York Stock Exchange after graduation and now she works for the Italian wine industry.
I graduated from Georgetown with a degree in Italian in 2003. I had a great experience in the Italian department! I was also able to pursue a business minor alongside my language major, which is an excellent benefit offered to language majors in the college. This education has benefitted me professionally in ways greater and more diverse than I imagined while I was at Georgetown. My first position immediately following graduation was in marketing for the International Division of the New York Stock Exchange. I now work in the wine industry, developing and implementing marketing communications plans for Italian and other European wine producers.
