See what our graduates are doing with their Romance Languages degrees

If you are an alum of our department, we would love to hear where you’ve been and where you’re going! Please email our Department Chair Joseph Acquisto to have your story included.

Sean Cray, ’18, double major in Spanish and Political Science
Sean is working for the Urban Teachers program in Baltimore, which is affiliated with Johns Hopkins School of Education. He has been assigned to teach at the elementary school level, and will also receive training on how to be a special education teacher. En route, he will receive his masters degree in elementary education/special education and  teaching license. He will likely be assigned to a school that has Spanish speakers because he can speak Spanish. 
 
Claudia Garber, ’18, Linguistics major, French minor
Claudia will be working as a data associate for Amazon's Alexa Skills team. The job involves language data processing to make Alexa run more smoothly. She will be working primarily in English, but her skills in French were also very attractive to the company, as French Alexa just launched so transcribers are needed. In the future, she would also like to go back to school for a PhD or Masters in Linguistics or a related field.
 

Jae Baker, ’17, French major, Italian Studies minor
After graduation, Jae dedicated himself to learning everything he could within the hospitality industry, focusing primarily on events. He recently accepted a position as the Event Technical Supervisor for the Baltimore Marriott Waterfront hotel in Baltimore, Maryland. His degree has provided him with an invaluable skill set and a deeper level of cultural competency. He’s had the pleasure of working with celebrities, political figures, musicians, etc. and using his language skills along the way to engage with people from various countries. 

 
Melissa Guzikowski, ’15 - double major in Italian Studies and Anthropology
After graduating from UVM, Melissa moved to Madrid where she worked as an au-pair for a year. From there, her love of travel landed her in the Canary Islands, a Spanish archipelago located off the western coast of Morocco. When sheʼs not at school teaching English, Melissa is advocating for animal rights through various internships and volunteer programs. She also runs a blog about veganism, slow travel, and mindfulness. In June 2018, she will leave the volcanic island of Tenerife to embark on a journey through Latin America. Melissaʼs appreciation of romance languages, culture, and travel blossomed during her college years. Her experience at UVM has allowed her to travel with an open mind while applying many of the concrete skills she learned in the classroom.
 
Alyssa Micheli, ’15 - double major in Italian Studies and Psychology
Alyssa moved to New York shortly after graduation and works in the Electronic Banking Department of Glens Falls National Bank. She recently concluded work on a year-long project to reissue EMV (chip) cards to all of the bank's customers and is preparing to start work on a new account opening project where she will continue to expand her knowledge of banking products while collaborating with colleagues across other bank departments.
 
Matthew Mason, ’13 - double major in Italian Studies and Latin
Matthew received his Ph.D. in Medieval and Renaissance literature at UC Berkeley. He specializes in vernacular humanism and narrative poetry from Florence, Bologna, and Ferrara, relying on the robust paleographic and linguistic training he received as an undergraduate at UVM. He spent fall 2016 as a graduate fellow at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa and aims to write his dissertation on interactions between ethics, politics, and material culture in the poetry of Dante and Petrarch.
 
Caitlin Clarke, ’12 - double major in French and English; minor in Political Science
Caitlin studied in Chambery for a semester as an undergraduate and then returned there as an English instructor for a year after graduation. Back in the U.S., she looked for jobs that would allow her to use her French. She now works for Microsoft, helping to draw up proposals that sales teams market to their clients. Her language skills were essential to her hiring; Microsoft wanted a French speaker who could work with their French account teams and also do research on French companies for account teams that do not know the language.
 
Ryan Peterson, ’12 - major in French, double minor in German and Political Science
Ryan spent his post-graduation year in Germany on a Fulbright Grant and then returned to the U.S. where he worked in New York City with an events management company and assisted in communications for various art galleries. In 2015, Ryan moved to France to complete a master's degree in political science and sociology at Sciences Po Strasbourg, and then continued on to a master's in European politics and Franco-German cooperation, graduating in 2017. He currently lives in Paris where he is working as a Public Affairs Consultant at a consulting firm.
 
Emily Rampone, '12 - Italian Studies major; Global Studies minor
Since graduation Emily has worked for Senator Bernie Sanders in Washington, D.C. She studied Italian cuisine during her study abroad, which fostered her interest in food policy. Currently, as the Senator's Agriculture and Nutrition Policy Adviser, she explores innovative ways to improve farmers' livelihoods and food access for all. She credits the support and encouragement she received from the Italian department for her success at UVM and her public policy career.
 
Molly Kelly-Yahner, ’11 - double major in Latin American Studies and Political Science; Spanish minor 
Molly works as a policy analyst at a small, yet well-known lobbying firm in Washington, D.C.  There she focuses on such issues as energy, space, cyber-security, housing finance, and immigration, in addition to leading research projects on current legislative and regulatory matters.
 
Adna Karabegovic, ’11 - major in Community Development and Applied Economics; French Minor
Adna has worked as the Marketing Manager for the Church Street Marketplace Business Improvement District since graduating. She is involved in a number of French welcoming programs, designed the "Bienvenue Quebecois" window clings as well as helped shape the initial French Welcome tent on Church Street. Due to her bilingualism, she was able to attend work-related conferences in Quebec and meetings with members from Church Street's twin downtown, Drummondville, QC. Additionally, she is a member of the Lake Champlain Chamber of Commerce's Executive Tourism Committee and has been invited to attend meetings in Québec. French also allowed her to spend several weeks in Alsace as part of Rotary International's Group Study Exchange Program.
 
Matthew Casserly, ‘10, French Major and German Minor
After graduating, Matthew found a great job at Nokian Tyres in Colchester, helping francophone customers from Quebec, Ontario, and the Maritime Provinces. He especially enjoyed talking about his job with those who told him to stop studying things like French (and Finnish!), grow up, and study business. After God's infinitely ironic sense of humor led Matthew to get his MBA from Cardiff University despite solemn vows to never study anything so practical as business, Matthew moved to Kiev and then Moscow to study Russian. He now wears many hats at Yandex, Russia's largest search engine and technology company, working mainly as a Russian-English translator and copywriter. In his free time, he teaches English, continues to study French, and volunteers in an organization that restores wooden churches in the north of Russia. Most importantly, he can still recite poetry he learned from his wonderful professors at UVM.
 
Amanda Fox, ’10 - Major in Global Studies and Political Science, Spanish Minor
Amanda has taken on a variety of jobs since graduation: as an Americorps creator of environmentally friendly activities for children and adolescents, as a para-educator for a girl with Down syndrome, as an instructor at the Green Mountain Audubon Center, and as a farmyard educator at Shelburne Farms. These have helped her apply what she learned in global studies about making connections, and now she is an Eco-Cycle educator in Boulder, Colo., teaching children about recycling, waste reduction, litter prevention, energy awareness and helping their schools to become producers of zero waste.
 
Patrick Grant-Musso, ’10 - Italian Studies major
Patrick unexpectedly, but happily, found his way in the natural food industry shortly after graduating from UVM. He started working as a finance manager for Madecasse, a fair-trade chocolate and vanilla company that sources its cocoa directly from local farmers in Madagascar and strives to make all of its chocolate at the source in Madagascar. At the end of 2016, Patrick was hired as an operations manager by Jawea Frozen Desserts, which makes coconut cream based ice cream that showcases international flavors inspired by adventure and travel, such as Horchata, Spiced Coffee, and Dulce NO Leche.
 
Raymond Ki, ’10 - double major in Spanish and Psychology
After graduating from UVM, Raymond served in the Peace Corps in the Philippines, where he taught English as a Second Language (ESL) for two years, mostly to 7th and 8th grade students. While there, he founded his Filipino [public] high school's English Club and learned to speak Tagalog at an intermediate level. After returning to the U.S.A., he enrolled at the Boston Academy of English where he received a Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) certificate.
Then, for a year and a half, Raymond studied at Boston University and graduated with a Master of Arts in Teaching Modern Foreign Language Education; his student teaching was done at Boston Green Academy, a Boston Public School. Afterward, he taught Spanish and ESL at CATS Academy Boston, a private boarding high school for international students. For the last few years, Raymond has been teaching introductory Spanish to 6th, 7th, and 8th grade students at Framingham Public Schools in Massachusetts.
 
Alexander Peartree, ’10 - Italian Studies major
Alexander worked for wineries in the Finger Lakes region of New York after graduating. From there he moved to the greater New York City area for a position at Wine Enthusiast Magazine. His job in the tasting department often requires him to taste up to 60 wines a day! Writing for the magazine has become a recent endeavor, and requires him to be current and knowledgeable of the latest beverage trends - a task he is more than willing to take on.
 
Kristine Richardson, ’10 - Italian Studies major
Kristine worked for Sun Chemical Corporation in Cincinnati as a Bilingual Master Data Analyst after graduating. This position allowed her to use her Italian language skills to translate business training documents for their Italian office. She moved to Portland, Maine, after three years and took a position in marketing. She now works for Diversified Communications as a search engine marketing specialist. She is passionate about travel and attends an advanced Italian conversation class weekly.
 
Meg Salocks, ’10 - French major; European Studies minor
After spending junior year abroad in France studying art history and critical theory, Meg came back to the States determined to work in the museum industry. She joined peer Matt Casserly for a bilingual year at Nokian Tyres before departing to intern at organizations in Vermont and California. This work led to a Master’s degree in Arts Administration from Columbia University and she focused her thesis research project on community engagement in New England museums as New England institutions face unique challenges that industry best practices cannot resolve. Meg has worked at the intersection of marketing and audience engagement for Jazz at Lincoln Center, Columbia University, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, Kidstock! Theater, and SIGMA Marketing Insights. She is currently the Director of Marketing and Engagement at Lake Champlain Maritime Museum in Vergennes, Vermont and finds herself exploring new media solutions for bilingual and multilingual on-site visitor experience.

 

More profiles of graduates prior to 2010

Emma Sector, ’08 - double major in Global Studies and English
Emma became an intern in a publishing house soon after graduation. This opportunity led directly to a career that she greatly enjoys - now she works as a marketing assistant in the children's division of a major New York publishing house and is delighted to be able to talk about books all day long.

Laura Siebecker, ’08 - double major in French and Political Science
Laura completed a Ph.D. in Theoretical Linguistics at Georgetown University.  While at Georgetown, she conducted research on first and second language acquisition, presented at conferences, and taught the undergraduate Introduction to Linguistics course.

Jonathan Bowley, ’07 - French Major and Spanish Minor
Jonathan attended Middlebury College French School Abroad where he obtained his Master's degree after graduating from UVM. While living abroad, he taught English to students at Epitech University and attended classes both at Middlebury's Centre Madeleine and the Sorbonne Nouvelle. Upon graduating from Middlebury, he resettled in Burlington, VT where he is now the associate director of health information technology and corporate compliance officer at The Community Health Centers of Burlington. Jonathan continues to employ the foreign language skills he learned at UVM not only for reading foreign news articles and novels, but also when helping refugees resettled into the Burlington area from francophone and Spanish-speaking countries. Jonathan is currently pursuing a second degree in Information Technology with a Software Emphasis.

Sarah Jane Compton, ’07 - double major in Italian and Environmental Studies
In 2014 she received her master’s degree in Romance Languages (Italian) from Southern Connecticut State University. Sarah Jane currently works in the Office of Sustainability at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut.

Liz Glatfelter, ’07 - Spanish minor
Liz started on her career in international development and human rights as a direct result of a UVM-led study abroad experience in Oaxaca, Mexico. Five months in Spain teaching English and volunteering on a farm allowed her to apply and internalize what she learned in her Spanish classes. After earning a Master's in International Affairs at the New School in New York and lending a hand to various humanitarian projects in Argentina and Southeast Asia, she is now committed heart and soul to her work with Doctors Without Borders in the areas of maternal health and refugee support.

Jose Martinez, ’07 – double major in Business Administration and Italian Studies
Jose is the Manager of Recruiting at HBO in NYC. In 2014, Jose took a sabbatical to move to Rome, Italy for 13 months and work in Human Resources for the United Nation’s World Food Programme based there. In his words, “I never thought I’d be able to use my Italian on a day-to-day basis since having studied abroad in Milan – living in Rome allowed me to fall in love with Italian again.”

Courtney O’Connor Beamer, ’07 - double major in Italian Studies and Women’s & Gender Studies
Courtney began a career in Social Work immediately upon graduating.  Working at Women Helping Battered Women (now Steps to End Domestic Violence) in Burlington fueled her passion for working to combat violence against women.  Courtney moved with her husband (also a UVM grad, with whom she was in an Italian Studies class) to Los Angeles in 2010, where she earned her master’s degree in Social Work.  She is now working as a therapist and Program Manager at the Downtown Women’s Center, providing housing and counseling services to women and families experiencing homelessness.

Peri Pignetti, ’07 - Italian Studies major
Peri has since become a librarian. She received her master's degree in library science from Queens College, CUNY. She currently works at the New York Society Library, the oldest library in New York City, and has worked at the New York Public Library, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the New York Transit Museum Archives. She also completed a certificate program in book and paper conservation in San Gemini, Italy.

Benjamin Eldredge, ’06 – double major in Italian Studies and Latin
Benjamin studied Italian Renaissance art at Rutgers, where he earned his MA. After many research trips to Italy, including a two-year stint as a Kress fellow at the Bibliotheca Hertziana in Rome, he returned home to Vermont where he works as a cheesemaker and continues to pursue his interest in Italy's history and art.

Isaac Forman, ’06 - double major in French and Political Science
Isaac spent a year after graduation in Buenos Aires, Argentina where he taught English as a second language, easily picking up Spanish along the way thanks to a firm foundation in French acquired at UVM. After his return to the States, he went to Columbia Law School and subsequently served as a law clerk to federal judges at the trial and appellate levels. Now he is an associate in a law firm in his home state of West Virginia.

Annie Houston, ‘06, double major in Italian Studies and French
Annie is a Program Officer at the Massachusetts Cultural Council – the state arts agency – and an English as a Second Language teacher at Chelsea Community Schools.  Annie has a master’s degree in Arts Administration from Boston University, which she obtained after spending a few years teaching English in Italy and France following graduation from UVM.  Though she does not use her language skills on a day-to-day basis, her majors had significant impact on her career trajectory.  She writes, “My own language learning experience and cultural studies from a decade ago have provided context and relativity that make me a better teacher today. It’s because of my Italian Studies degree that I realized how the arts interpret, present, and preserve our most triumphant and tumultuous times, and just how often they are used to facilitate communication and promote understanding.  This is critical to my work at the Council, and part of what makes me a dedicated supporter and promoter of the arts.”

Meghan Kelley, ’06 - double major in Spanish and Education
After completing graduate work in Madrid and UVM, Meghan taught in area schools before starting the Spanish program in which she continues teaching. She was recently elected to the Board of Directors for the Vermont Foreign Language Association.

Megan Kiernan, ’06 - double major in French and English; minor in History
Megan first taught English at a prep school in Massachusetts for two years and then in France for a year.  She subsequently joined AmeriCorps, working with senior citizens and running programs of her own creation to better their health in body and mind. During this year with AmeriCorps she discovered her vocation for counseling and returned to UVM for a Master's of Science in Mental Health Counseling. Now she works as a substance abuse counselor with local halfway houses and correctional facilities, a job that continues to challenge, surprise and inspire her.

Greg Lombardi, ’06 - double major in Spanish and Finance
Greg has been working in the challenging realm of finance in New York, Chile, Burlington and Denver. He is now eager to try his hand at some creative, web-related business pursuits. He reports that his Spanish major strengthened him as an individual and gave him new perspectives on the world that have proved necessary in his career.

Timothy Wilson, ’06 - double major in French and Jazz Studies
Timothy is completing his Ph.D. in French at CUNY's Graduate Center. In addition to teaching, he has presented papers at professional conferences, begun to publish in the field of cultural and media studies and is exploring nonprofit fundraising as a museum intern. He plans to pursue career options in academia and nonprofit organizations for the arts and human rights.

Jessica Barrett, ’05 - English major (and many Italian classes!)
Jessica enrolled in a dual degree program at the University of Virginia, pursuing the Master of Arts and Ph.D. in English Literature. She is working on a dissertation on authentic encounter in poems by John Keats, John Clare, and William Wordsworth. She teaches literature and writing to UVA undergraduates and to medical school aspirants from across the globe through the Summer Medical Education Program. She expects to earn the Ph.D. and to continue the life of a teacher and writer throughout her life.

Kerry Violet Stanley, ’97 - double major in French and Canadian Studies
Kerry went from UVM to serve as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Cameroon. Her role in the Peace Corps was to teach English to Francophone students in an AIDS prevention program. Upon her return to the U.S., she began working with individuals infected with HIV, which led to a Master's of Social Work and then work in hospitals with cancer patients needing psychosocial and logistical support. She assists patients in their native French language when need be and facilitates communication for individuals of many different linguistic and cultural backgrounds. Without French, her experience at UVM and in the Peace Corps, she reports that she would not be where she is today in a rewarding and challenging career.

Deb Raftus, '96 - French major; minors in African Studies and European Studies
Deb is the librarian for French and Italian Studies, Spanish and Portugese Studies, and Latin American and Caribbean Studies at the University of Washington in Seattle. She took classes in French, Spanish, and Italian as an undergrad at UVM, and uses all three languages in her job. She received her M.A. in French from Middlebury College (spending an academic year in Paris) followed by an MLIS from the University of Washington. At UW, she helps students, faculty and staff with their academic research; purchases books, journals and other materials for the collection; and teaches research skills workshops. Occasionally, she gets to travel to book fairs around the world to buy books. It's a dream job! 

Marcus Grace, ’94 - French major
Marcus lived and worked in France for five years, first as a research and development assistant, then as an English instructor in private industry, teaching everyone from assembly-line workers to top managers and also leading evening classes open to the public. After moving back to Vermont, he has been teaching French in middle school and high school near Waterbury.

Charlotte Sector, ’93 - European Studies major, with many classes in French and Spanish
After earning her graduate degree at the Columbia Journalism School, Charlotte worked at CNN for several years and then moved to Paris and joined a multi-national team to launch France 24 - a 24-hour international news channel that broadcasts in French, English and Arabic.

Tricia Dowhan, ’87 - French major
Tricia now lives in Florence, Italy. For nearly twenty years she has been working for a company offering several types of active travel experiences throughout the globe and is now part of the senior management team. She loves walking in the footsteps of the Romans and Etruscans (of late!) and feels fortunate to have found a profession that allows her to use French, Italian, German, Portuguese, Spanish, and even a bit of Arabic.

Maria Rodriguez-McKey, ’83 - French major
Maria holds a J.D. and a Master’s in Russian Law from the Institute of State and Law in Moscow, as well as a post-graduate degree on elections at the Sorbonne University in Paris. She is currently a researcher at the Center for Comparative Studies on Elections at the Sorbonne.  With Bernard Owen, she is the co-author of Proportional Western Europe: The Failure of Governance (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013).

Morgan Saunders

Language and the Law

While at UVM, Morgan Saunders '12 studied abroad at the Sciences Po in Rennes, France taking courses in European and French law. It was at Sciences Po that Morgan discovered her love of legal theory and constitutional law. After graduating and serving a year as an AmeriCorps member, Morgan began study at Columbia Law School. While in school Morgan worked for the U.S. Department of Justice, the U.S. Department of Labor, the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights, and Covington & Burling, LLP. Morgan graduated in 2017 and worked as a clerk for a State Supreme Court Judge in Alaska, and then for a Federal District Court Judge in Vermont.

Kelsey M. Sullivan

Language and Medicine

Kelsey Sullivan '14 worked at the Howard Center, a Burlington-based center for human services, in the service area of Mental Health and Substance Abuse prior to starting medical school at the Larner College of Medicine at UVM in fall 2014. She graduated in 2018 and is pursuing a pediatric residency. In addition to pursuing clinical training, she plans to engage in advocacy on behalf of children. In her medical studies, Kelsey appreciates the critical thinking and writing skills that she developed as a French major. Additionally, her experience studying abroad in France was especially important for her interactions with patients who are refugees or from otherwise varying backgrounds.