Crystal Hall

My love affair with Italy began in High School and continued during my undergraduate work at Cornell where I changed majors and schools in order to complete an Honors degree in Italian.  I still remember hearing Kevin Brownlee's message that I had been accepted into the Ph.D. program at Penn, my top choice for graduate school.  After meeting the faculty and touring campus, I knew that the fit was right.  Penn's abundant resources helped me to develop a strong research profile and the skills to become a young academic, and the Department of Romance Languages and the Center for Italian Studies also made it possible for me to work in Italian archives and libraries to complete my work on Galileo.  As an Assistant Professor at the University of Kansas I am currently employing all of my class notes, test preparation materials, and research from my Penn career to develop new undergraduate courses, grow the Italian major, and publish my work on seventeenth-century Italian literature.