Alex was born and raised in Italy, near Florence. She earned her BA and MA in Chinese Language and Culture at Ca’ Foscari University, Venice, and completed her PhD degree at IU in Spring 2024. Prior to resuming her academic studies in 2017, she worked in China as a language teacher and school manager for about nine years. Here at IU she pursued a PhD with a major in Chinese linguistics and a minor in Second Language Studies. Her academic interests consist of many, ranging from comparative morpho-syntax to second and third adult language acquisition. She worked as an associate instructor for EALC for over four years, teaching a variety of area-studies courses. Alex published studies on third language acquisition of Italian null pronouns and non-native acquisition of Chinese relative clauses, and her dissertation investigated the non-native acquisition of Chinese counterfactual conditionals.