Luigi De Luca, Ph.D. Headshot

Dr. De Luca received a Maturita' Classica from the Capece State College in Maglie, Lecce, Italy; a Doctorate in Organic Chemistry from the Institute of Biological Chemistry, University of Pavia, Italy; an M.A. in Classics (Latin) from the University of Maryland, College Park; and an M.A. in Greek and a Ph.D. in Greek and Latin from The Catholic University of America (2019), with a dissertation on Basil of Caesarea’s botany, pharmacology, and nutrition.

Dr. De Luca has published extensively in the area of the nutritional biochemistry of vitamins and their involvement in health. He has led a laboratory at the National Cancer Institute, and supervised graduate students in the performance of their doctoral research in the area of nutritional biochemistry. He has been a visiting professor at the Universities of Oslo, Naples, Tokyo, Berkeley (Welcome Professor), Rome, and Pavia, and a Resident Scholar at the Bellagio Study Center (Bellagio, Italy). He presently teaches two graduate courses at Johns Hopkins University (Baltimore) at the School of Public Health.

Dr. De Luca is or has been a member of Eta Sigma Phi, of the Classical Association of Atlantic States, and of the American Philological Association. He has been a Regional representative from Maryland to the Classical Association of the Atlantic States (CAAS) and a member of its Program Committee. He has taught introductory and advanced Latin courses at the University of Maryland, and served as a Co-Director of the NEH Institute on "The Teaching of Italian through Italian Art" (Rome and Florence 2009 and 2011).

His publications in the Classics include: "Ovatio: Barbara Wismer McManus," co-authored with Robert Boyd, Vanessa Johnson and Judith P. Hallett (Classical World 94.4 [2001]); and "Ovatio: Frank M. Snowden, Jr.," co-authored with Judith P. Hallett and Ed Sacks (Classical World 97.4 [2004]).  He was a presenter at the fall 2002 CAAS Annual Meeting (Cherry Hill, NJ), and co-chaired a session on "Italian-Americans in the Classics" at the fall 2003 CAAS Annual Meeting (Wilmington, DE).