Lina Insana an associate professor in the Department of French and Italian in the Dietrich School along with the Heinz History Center and West Virginia University were awarded a National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) award. The award is a $50,000 grant to support and grow the Italian Diaspora Archive Resource Map (IDARM) project. The project catalogs archival materials that document the Italian American experience in Western Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia.
Insana’s partners in the IDARM initiative and co-grantees are Nancy A. Caronia, Associate Teaching Professor at West Virginia University, and project coordinator Melissa Marinaro, the Heinz History Center’s Italian American Program director.
The Italian Diaspora Archive Resource Map is the first archival project of its kind in the fields of Italian American and Italian Diaspora studies. The team hopes that the grant's help will pave the way for creating a digital map where the institutions’ information may be easily viewed and their resources collected.