Penn architecture professor Sean Burkholder and Italian studies professor Eva Del Soldato have been awarded a 2025-26 Rome Prize.
The Rome Prize, which has been awarded by the American Academy in Rome for 130 years, aims to support "innovative and cross-disciplinary work in the arts and humanities.” There were 35 recipients this year, which came from a pool of 990 applications from applicants in 44 states, D.C., Puerto Rico, and 17 other countries.
The American Academy in Rome is a private residential community located on the Janiculum Hill in Rome. The Academy has been a place for “independent research in the arts and humanities for over 125 years.” Chosen recipients of the prize have the opportunity to reside at the Academy’s grounds for five to ten months beginning in September.
Burkholder was awarded the Gilmore D. Clarke and Michael Rapuano/Kate Lancaster Brewster Rome Prize to support his work on lake-based infrastructure and storytelling. Burkholder is also the co-founder of the Environmental Modeling Lab, which is part of Penn’s McHarg Center for Urbanism and Ecology, and studies the issues that coastal landscapes face, focusing on lake-based geographies. Burkholder is currently working on his second book, titled “Lakemaker: Surveys, Stories, and Speculations of Held Water.”
A few years ago, Burkholder joined forces with the City of Philadelphia to establish a decennial dredge plan for the Schuylkill River, further focusing on research strategies to help keep the river clear for decades into the future.
Del Soldato was awarded the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Rome Prize to “support her project Lovesickness in the Forgotten Centuries, investigating medical writing on lovesickness produced in the Italian peninsula after the Council of Trent.”
Del Soldato is also the graduate chair of the Department of Francophone, Italian, and Germanic Studies and focuses her research on Renaissance thought and culture, particularly on the Aristotelian and Platonic traditions.
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