Iva S. Youkilis is a Teaching Professor of Italian in the School for Languages, Literatures, and Cultures and is affiliated with the Global Health Scholar Program at the University of Missouri, Columbia. She has coordinated the elementary Italian language sequence and 300-level courses, administered and coordinated placement exams, served as a faculty liaison for student-organized groups, and participated enthusiastically in many extracurricular student-organized and community-based events. She has directed the Summer Language Institute in Italy for several years. At Washington University, she collaborated with a colleague in another language department to design and implement the annual Language Teaching Fair with the Center for Learning and Teaching. This initiative aimed to foster a greater sense of community among language-teaching faculty, promote sharing of best practices and technology-inspired pedagogical advancements, and create more opportunities for information sharing. She is the president-elect of the Foreign Languages Association of Missouri (FLAM) conference and serves as a member on the MLA Committee on Information Technology. Additionally, she is an ACTFL mentor for Italian, an advisor to the Italian club Italian per Piacere, and an active member in many other Italian clubs in the St. Louis region. She received her MA in Italian Literature from the University of Virginia. Before coming to Columbia, Missouri, she taught Italian at Washington University in St. Louis for 21 years, as well as at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor; the Community College in Royal Oak, Michigan; the University of Virginia in Charlottesville; and a Community School for Foreigners in Milan, Italy.