Sarah-Grace Heller, associate professor in the Department of French and Italian, has been appointed chair of the department for a four-year term, effective July 1, 2022. A FRIT faculty member since 2001, she also served in leadership roles for the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies from 2008-2012. Heller specializes in medieval French and Occitan literature, language and culture in addition to fashion theory and material culture. Her most recent articles have been featured in academic journals such as Postmedieval and French Historical Studies, and she’s writing a book with the working title Fashion’s Roots across the Romance Routes of the Mediterranean, 400-1300. Heller is president of Société Guilhem IX, a group promoting Occitan scholarship, and serves on the editorial board of its journal Tensoas well as Medieval Clothing and Textiles. She earned her PhD and MA in French from the University of Minnesota and her BA in French from Grinnell College.