Vanessa is a Paris-based educator, administrator, and researcher. She first came to France while on a study abroad program with the University of Chicago and discovered the country’s rich history. After two years of teaching and learning in Germany, she earned a master’s and Ph.D. in Modern European History at the University of California, Berkeley. Her research has concerned France’s first historical museum and the beginnings of cultural heritage preservation, projects for European and international institutions in nineteenth-century France, and, most recently, the process of restitution after the First World War from Germany to France. She taught for over 10 years in universities, including the American University of Paris and Sciences Po, and has also worked with UNESCO in the World Heritage and Education sectors and in museum education. Vanessa is currently Head of Department and a History-Geography Professor for an Oxford program in a French Lycée. She speaks fluent French and basic German. This is her fifth summer with Paris Academia.