Dr. Michael Burke will be attached to both the School of Languages and the School of Political Sciences where he will teach graduate students. He will also work on a joint research project investigating how people from diversity backgrounds can acquire charisma for public speaking performances. Dr. Burke is currently on research leave from UCR. He will be dividing his time between this post in Italy and his current research position as Visiting Scholar in the Faculty of Education in University of Cambridge where he is working on a ‘literacy, language and cognition’ project within the Centre for Research in Children’s Literature at Homerton College.