Gisela Kommerell was born and raised in Germany and received an M.A. in German and Romance Literature and Language from the Albert-Ludwig University of Freiburg. She has been a Lecturer in the Department of Germanic & Slavic Studies at UCSB since 2008. Her interests include translation, syntax and grammar, foreign language pedagogy, as well as German language, literature, history, and music. She speaks French in addition to German and English and has a reading knowledge of Latin and Italian.