Harvard University rewards Sapienza. The Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Studies of the prestigious American university has conferred an important recognition to Maria Gabriella Di Benedetto, professor of Electronic Engineering of the Department of Information Engineering, Electronics and Telecommunications, inserting it in the class of fellowship of 2019-20.

In the United States Di Benedetto will be able to conduct a project on the process by which a listener stores the words of a speaker: in particular, it will extend to the Italian language the lexical access system developed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) for the English language, based on the 'hypothesis that words are stored as a hierarchical arrangement of distinctive features. Exploring a new language will provide information on the possibility of a universal approach between the different languages, with relevant implications on how the human brain recognizes words.

The Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Studies is a school dedicated to creating and sharing innovative ideas that span all disciplines, which makes it a unique environment in Harvard University. Every year it hosts around 50 scholars, scientists and artists from all over the world, representing only 3.7% of the requests. During their stay in the institute, the fellows hold lectures, make presentations for the public, participate in interdisciplinary study groups collaborating with Harvard students.