Congratulations to Luna Sarti, Dean's Scholar!

We are thrilled to celebrate the scholarship of alumni PPEH fellow, Rising Waters fellow and PhD candidate in Italian Studies, Luna Sarti, who was recognized last week as a 2019 Penn Arts and Sciences Dean's Scholar. This prestigious award is given to nine School of Arts and Sciences graduate students per year "who exhibit exceptional academic performance and intellectual promise."

Sarti's dissertation, focused on the medieval and early modern conceptions of flooding in the Italian city of Florence, investigates how cultures of water play a crucial role in determining the relevance (and the occurrence) of flooding. Reaching beyond the historical and geographic foci of her research, Sarti ultimately hopes that archival research on pre-modern practices  "will cast light on forgotten ways of engaging with unstable boundaries between dry and wet landscapes, thus opening the path toward new strategies for imagining a future in which waters do not remain within the boundaries we have assigned to them."

Sarti's home department of Romance Languages describes her as "a wonderful contributor of ideas" & "an active listener." We at PPEH couldn't agree more! In addition to her brilliant scholarship, she is a generous and collaborative colleague. Complimenti vivissimi, Luna!