Risa Sodi is an associate dean of Academic Affairs and the inaugural director of advising and special programs in Yale College. She works closely with the first-year and sophomore classes, transfer students, nontraditional (“Eli Whitney”) students, and ROTC students.
Risa has degrees from Smith College (B.A. history and Italian), UMass/Amherst (M.A. French and Italian, 1988), and Yale (M.Phil, 1992; and Ph.D. 1995, Italian language and literature).
She was the Senior Lector II and Language Program Director in the Yale Italian Department (1995-2013), where, in 2003, she inaugurated Yale’s first summer study in Italy program. Between 2013-2015, she was also the associate director of the Poorvu Teaching Center for Teaching and Learning.
Risa is the author of books on Primo Levi, Italian Holocaust literature, and grantwriting, and co-editor, with Millicent Marcus, of an essay collection dedicated to Levi. She has also written and lectured widely on topics related to Jewish Italy and the Holocaust in Italy.
Her awards include Yale’s Veterans Tribute Award (2022) and Linda K. Lorimer Distinguished Service Award (2023), and Phi Beta Kappa’s Joseph W. Gordon Award for Distinguished Contributions to the Arts and Sciences (2024).