Profiles

A retired university professor, Silvio Laccetti created a foundation to support educational and cultural initiatives, and to inspire others to do the same. The nonprofit Silvio Laccetti Foundation recognizes individuals and schools in a variety of academic areas and gives out unique donations like public statues. One of its awards, named after Italian general Giuseppe Garibaldi, honors high school seniors who have excelled in promoting the Italian-American legacy. There are also awards in classical studies, STEM, sportsmanship and leadership. The man behind the enterprise, Silvio Laccetti, taught history and social sciences at Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, New Jersey, …

Stories can change the world. That’s the message that Sara Serritella, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist turned professor who co-built the science communication program at the University of Chicago, shares in her 2024 TEDx Talk. So, what is science communication? “It’s the art and science of distilling complex medical and research information to resonate with a non-expert audience, so that the general public can use the information to access care and live their best, healthiest, happiest lives,” Serritella explains. “Breakthroughs cannot help people if they don’t know they exist or how to apply health discoveries to their worlds.” A native of …

Rose Mary Ranallo, president of the Women’s Division of the Joint Civic Committee of Italian Americans since 2008, has a deep connection to the organization and has no plans to walk away anytime soon. Her mother, Gina Acino Sclafani, has been a Women’s Division member since 1980, including a stint as president. Ranallo says her mother always encouraged her to get involved and she finally relented in the early 2000s. “I finally came to a meeting and got hooked in with the lovely ladies,” Ranallo says. “I love the camaraderie with them and what the cause is, especially the scholarship …

Now in his fourth year as an Italian teacher at Resurrection College Prep in Chicago, Francesco Campobasso credits a conversation with his cousins in Italy for steering him toward his true passion. After earning a bachelor’s degree of commerce in finance from DePaul University in Chicago, Campobasso worked for various banks for 15 years despite having always wanted to be a teacher. Then, during a visit to Italy in October 2019, he found himself having honest conversations with family about what he really wanted to do. On his final night there, his cousins gifted him a bracelet inscribed with a …

Blind since the age of 12, Andrea Bocelli has shed a joyous musical light throughout the world in the course of a three-decade career that has skyrocketed him into the popera firmament. It’s been 31 years since Andrea Bocelli won the newcomers’ section of the 44th Sanremo Music Festival with his performance of “Il mare calmo della sera.” Almost 100 million albums and countless awards and recognitions later, he remains one of the world’s greatest living tenors. Andrea was born in a small Tuscan town in 1958, where his family had a farm and made wine. He was diagnosed in …

A veteran actor of stage and screen, Susan Vinciotti Bonito has made a name for herself in the burgeoning world of audiobooks. Growing up in Italy, Susan Vinciotti Bonito dreamed of becoming an actor but decided to study economics to please her father. Then, in the late 1980s, she decided to pursue her passion. Vinciotti Bonito now lives with her husband and son in Santa Monica, California, where she works out of her broadcast-quality studio voicing characters for audiobooks, video games and commercials. Her narration of Jhumpa Lahiri’s novel “Whereabouts” earned her an AudioFile Magazine Earphones Award in 2021. She …

Three Italians graced UIC Women’s Volleyball Team with her talents during the 2025 season. What would compel a young Italian to leave her home and family to enroll at a state-run university in Chicago? For the three Italians on the 2025 Women’s Volleyball Team at the University of Illinois Chicago, the answer is a combination of wanting to travel, the desire for a challenge and knowing they would be part of a robust community of international students. Francesca Venturini, who grew up in Bergamo, a city of around 120,000 residents northeast of Milan, was the first of the trio to …

Fascinated with airplanes from an early age, Dennis Santi lost two pounds in a week to pass the physical and embark on a quarter-century career in the Naval Reverse’s aviation program. The younger of two boys, Dennis Santi was born in Highwood, Illinois, to Ernest and Victoria Baldi Santi. His maternal and paternal grandparents emigrated from the Modena region of Italy. Santi’s father died when he was 1 year old, and his mother worked as the city clerk in Highwood. “We were lucky to grow up in Highwood in an Italian neighborhood,” Santi says. “It was close-knit. If I got …

Linnea McHugh knows that spearheading change in government is a slow process, but she’s up for the task. McHugh is the chief policy officer for the Cook County Board of Review’s District 2, playing a key role in shaping policies that improve transparency, efficiency and equity in property tax assessment appeals and ensure fair property valuations across Cook County. “I was brought on to help address the  consistent communication issues which exist between the factions of government that oversee the property tax system to become more manageable  and successful through interoffice relations, to make sure that the Cook County District …

When Italian teacher Alessia Defraia earned a scholarship for an internship at the Italian Cultural Institute in Chicago, she thought she’d spend about three months in the city. Eighteen years later, she is still there, having amassed an impressive breadth and depth of experience in her field. “I jokingly say I’m like the ‘Nutella of Chicago’ because I’m everywhere in the Italian teaching scene,” she says. Defraia is a part-time instructor at the University of Loyola Chicago, where she has taught elementary, intermediate and advanced Italian, teaching methodologies and Italian linguistics. She teaches Italian at the nonprofit ItalCultura, the Italian …