I have always dreamt of doing a PhD, and as I found Anthropology while studying textiles at FIT in New York, I started working towards its realization. Quite afar from the pulse of Manhattan and my textiles studies, my PhD project is set in Puglia, Italy. It concerns the ancient landscape of olive culture, and explores the traditions, flows, rhythms, care work, and craftsmanships of making olive oil.

I found a particular sense of home in Puglia, so I decided to jump on the feeling and buy a house here, in the heel of Italy. Back in 2021, when my husband and I started renovating, the house was not much more than a shell, but has since become a dreamy place. We have yet work to do with the garden, but as the Salentini we have become, we’re taking it piano piano.

Advanced from personal experience, my postdoctoral project explores issues of menstrual (un)health in Sweden and the U.S. It includes critical studies of cross-cultural engagements with menstruating bodies, and addresses some of the situated perspectives with which menstrual (un)health is understood, treated, approached, experienced, and commodified.