The Speakers

Margaux Trexler is a junior at New York University studying English and American Literature and Peace and Conflict Studies. She is an experienced author, having published two books, one poem, one short story, and two articles. Margaux’s professional and academic interests revolve around her passion for languages and words and how they can foster compassionate connection and communication in our personal, creative, and professional lives.

Ainsley Dean is sophomore majoring in Urban Design and Architecture, Sociology, and Italian. Her love of Italian history began during her freshman year at NYU and has only grown stronger since. In addition to her work with the Italian Undergraduate Research Conference, she is a co-editor for Ink & Image and a research assistant in NYU’s Sociology department. She hopes to eventually attend graduate school to further research urban sociological issues. She would like to thank her friends and family for their support, as well as Professors Knight, Cowan, and Albaum for their mentorship and encouragement.

Sophia Moore is a third-year undergraduate student at CAS, studying Romance Languages (Italian and Portuguese) and Journalism. She is also pursuing an accelerated Masters degree at NYU in International Relations and professional coursework in Translation at NYU SPS. Her writing has been published in several commercial and academic publications. She is currently studying abroad at NYU Florence after spending part of her first year there with the Liberal Studies First Year Away program. In New York, she work-studies at the Italian Studies Department, and hopes to one day work for the US Foreign Service.

Ashley Crowder is a junior at CAS majoring in Psychology and minoring in Italian Studies. During her freshman year, she had the opportunity to study abroad in Florence which is where she began to study Italian language and culture. Ashley is passionate about her education and the potential that it holds for herself and the world. Migration is an integral part of Italian culture in the contemporary world. This research has given her the opportunity to merge two of her greatest interests to focus on an underrepresented issue that affects millions.

Stella Magni is a freshman in the College of Arts and Sciences. She studies Italian in the forefront and NYU’s Italian department is what brought her to the school in the first place. Linguistics is her new found love and she seeks to study Cognitive Communicative Disorders at NYU and has a wide interest in language. She is the future president of NYU’s Italian Club and an active member of the Italian Conversation Club with Simon Lieber. She will be traveling to Bologna under a scholarship in May and, as a barista, is seeking the best cup of caffè.

Leena Haider is currently a junior studying International Relations at CAS. She is studying Italian language and culture as part of her language and regional specification requirement for her major. She has a strong interest in political and social research, some of which she have done and presented at other colleges like University of California Berkeley (2020), Stanford University (2022), and John Hopkins University (2022).

Alex Liu is a sophomore and a double major in Math and Physics. During his second semester at NYU Shanghai, he learned a lot about the formation of Chinese national identity in a course called The Concept of China. This semester, he took the course Black Italia, in which students discussed the identity of those who are considered as "others" in the Italian society. Alex saw this course as a good opportunity to apply his previous knowledge about national identity to analyze the formation of Italian identities.