Diana Marano

was born in Palermo, Italy. She obtained her laurea and PhD in Structural Engineering from the University of Palermo. Diana has spent most of her life in Palermo. From 2005 to 2008 she lived in Vicenza, Italy where she worked for an Architectural and Engineering company. In 2008 she moved to San Francisco where she lives with her husband. In 2009 she started teaching Italian language and culture at the Istituto Italiano Scuola. Diana’s hobbies include reading, cooking, crafts work, opera and sightseeing.

Barbara Gautero

received her “laurea” in English language and Literature at the University of Torino. In Italy, she taught English to high school students and worked in her family’s bookstore. She moved to San Francisco in 2004 and immediately started to teach Italian. She loves teaching and considers it the best possibility to communicate and share her knowledge and passion for linguistics, literature, art and cinema.

Gianna Di Dio Russo

comes from Milan, the world capital for fashion and home of the popular regional dish Risotto. She worked in Milan’s dynamic trade show industry while obtaining her degree in Political Science from the Università Statale di Milano. After moving to California, Gianna obtained both an MBA and a Master’s degree in Recreation Studies, in keeping with her passion for the travel industry. Gianna has taught Italian in the Bay Area for nearly a decade. She manages to return to Italy every year to explore new destinations and experiences to share with her students.

Alessia Pesciaioli

was born in Terni, Umbria, the green region in the center of Italy, and the only one not touched by the sea. She grew up in Rome and graduated from Univerista’ La Sapienza, in Business Administration and Economics. She then lived in Luxembourg for a year working at the EEC while finishing her economics thesis. After her degree she visited San Francisco, fell in love with the city and decided to stay. In San Francisco, she worked for 5 years in marketing and business development in the Internet and Telecom industries . Returning to Europe and living in London, she decided to turn her passion into her career and became a qualified teacher, teaching Italian at the Italian Insitute of Culture for three years. She moved back to San Francisco again in 2006 and is now teaching at the Istituto Italiano Scuola.

Paola Rossaro

was born in Pesaro, on the Adriatic coast. She moved to Milan, where she graduated in Computer Science at the University of Milan. Later on, she obtained a Ph.D. in Software Engineering at the University of Pavia. During this time she was also a visitor researcher at the University of Maryland, working on her dissertation project. After her degree, she obtained a post-doc at the International Computer Science Institute of UC Berkeley. She fell in love with the Bay Area and worked for more than 10 years in the software industry. She has been teaching italian since the beginning of 2010, and she is loving it. Among her interests are movies, reading novels, and being in the outdoors, specially in the wild California mountains.

Romana Ricci

graduated in Foreign Languages and Literatures from the University of G. D’Annunzio in Pescara. She holds a Master’s degree in linguistics from the University of La Sorbonne in Paris. She also studied at the University of Salamanca in Spain. She taught Italian in Paris in high school, business schools, and to corporate executives. She worked at The Louvre Museum as an Italian art teacher and in its linguistic labs for 2 years. After working in public relations for a fashion company in Paris, she moved to San Francisco in 2009, where she’s happy to return to her true passion: teaching. She joined the IIS in the fall of 2010.

Elena Olivari

comes from Vicenza, a city in northeastern Italy, rich in history and culture and known for its elegant Renaissance palazzi and the work of architect Andrea Palladio. She received a Masters in Architecture at the Istituto Universitario di Architettura in Venice Italy. Since then she has worked as an architect in Italy, Asia and San Francisco. In 2008 she started her own company, PulpWorks, and started to teach Italian privately. She discovered how much she enjoys teaching and being reconnected with the Italian language, culture and literature. She joined the IIS team in 2013. She loves the Bay Area, has spent 23 years in the city and she loves traveling, hiking, skiing and walking on the beach with her dog.

Silvia Pareschi

was born in Laveno, on Lago Maggiore. She graduated in Foreign Languages and Literatures from the University of Bologna, and then attended a Masters Course at Scuola Holden, a creative writing school in Torino. Silvia then started working as literary translator from English into Italian, specializing in contemporary American fiction. Among the authors she translates are Jonathan Franzen, Cormac McCarthy, Don DeLillo, Junot Díaz, E.L. Doctorow, Denis Johnson, Amy Hempel, Annie Proulx, Zadie Smith. In 2016 she wrote a book, I jeans di Bruce Springsteen e altri sogni americani, which was published by Giunti Editore. She loves teaching because she enjoys sharing her knowledge with other people, and because there’s always something to learn in exchange.

Valentina Medda

Valentina comes from Sardinia and holds an honors degree in Japanese studies from Ca’ Foscari University in Venice. She’s been teaching Italian to children and adults for over a decade and she enjoys it so much that, in 2005, she earned a Master’s degree in Italian Language and Literature Teaching Methodology from the International University of Siena. In her spare time, she can be spotted roaming free around Marin County parks, bookshops, movie theaters, restaurants or taking very long walks with her beloved pooch Roscoe. Her family is routinely subjected to her culinary experiments, but they still love her.

Francesca Lorenzon Cocco

Francesca was born and raised in Friuli Venezia Giulia, in North Eastern Italy. She holds a Master degree with honors in Modern Languages and Literature from the University of Trieste. After moving to the Bay Area with her whole family, she discovered her passion for teaching Italian. It was her experience as a volunteer teaching her native language to adults at Bechtel International Center, Stanford, that inspired her to start a new life as an Italian teacher. Since then she has been teaching both to adults and children around the Bay Area. In her free time, she loves to hike with her husband and dogs, enjoy both nature and cultural events, spend time with her two children (when they are around!), and cook and eat delicious Italian dishes to share with friends!

Giorgia Battisodo

Giorgia Battisodo was born in Pesaro, a lovely city on the Adriatic coast that has given birth to the world Moto GP champion Valentino Rossi, as well as the composer Gioachino Rossini, after whom a delicious pizza with eggs and mayonnaise was named.

She graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in European Languages and Cultures at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia. During her studies she had the chance to spend an exchange year in Berlin, Germany, studying at Humboldt University, and fell in love with the city and its contrasts.

At a later stage, she moved to Brussels to further her education with a Master’s in Multilingual Communication and International Relations; there she discovered her passion for tutoring and teaching, as she supported students with an immigration background in different high-schools throughout the city. She speaks English, Italian, French and German.

Giorgia later returned to her home country, where she continued her teaching career focusing on teaching foreign languages, including an intensive Italian language training for asylum seekers. 

She holds a DITALS I Italian teaching certificate from the University of Siena focusing on teaching Italian language for academic purposes.

Finally, her heart has led her to the Bay Area, where she lives with her husband and, hopefully soon, a fluffy kitten. She loves dancing and photography, and she is very excited to embark on this new adventure at Istituto Italiano Scuola!