Is there such a thing as Italian food? The answer, Samantha Dell’Imperio said, is a little complicated. Italian food, like many traditional cuisines is a fusion of cultures, she said, partly due influences from the number of Italy’s conquerors, from Muslims in the 800s to the Normans from western Europe through the 1100s.

This is one slice of a whole pie of knowledge Dell’Imperio is diving into, as the University of Michigan graduate-turned-Fulbright Scholar studies all angles of food in northern Italy. Dell’Imperio graduated from the Ann Arbor campus in spring 2023 with a degree in biology, health and society and a minor in Italian.