Marina M. Melita is currently finishing her Ph.D. at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is the 2012 recipient of the UNC-Chapel Hill award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching by a Graduate Student. In addition, she also won a nationwide competition for  a Teacher Study Grant from Babilionia Centro per StudiItaliani in Taormina, Sicily. Prof. Melita spent two weeks at the center in Sicily before returning to Elon for the 2012-13 academic year.

Professor Melita’s research interests include American and Italian theatre, cinema, Italian women playwrights at the turn of the century, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Antonio Gramsci, and Italian culinary history. She holds a bachelor's degree in theatre from SUNY College at Brockport and a M.A. degree in Italian from Middlebury College. She has taught Italian at Duke University, Chi-cle Language Institute and Scuola Lorenzo de Medici in Florence, Italy, before coming to Elon.

During the 2012-13 academic year, Ms. Melita is serving as the acting coordinator of the Italian Studies Department and Faculty Advisor to the Italian Learning Community, La Casa italiana.