UCLA undergraduate Alexa Rojas has received two prestigious honors for research developed in Professor Roberta Morosini’s Winter 2025 course Transgression/s at the Periphery—The Merchant and the Siren: On Blu Humanism, Mobility, and Crossings. Rojas was awarded the 2025 American Boccaccio Association’s (ABA) Giuseppe Velli Undergraduate Prize for the best research-based project or essay submitted by an undergraduate, as well as the UCLA/Keck Humanistic Inquiry Undergraduate Research Award, which supports innovative undergraduate research in the humanities, arts, and social sciences.
Her project, “Do Clothes Make the (Wo)man?,” examines the role of clothing in Boccaccio’s Decameron as a means of expressing both outward traits and inner identity. Through close readings of several stories, she explores how clothing reflects and shapes identity. Rojas explains that she was drawn to this particular topic because of its relevance to contemporary conversations around immigration, where clothing often serves as the first—and sometimes only—marker of identity and privilege.
“Clothing goes beyond language and remains a powerful form of communication, both in Boccaccio’s time and today,” said Rojas.
These achievements also highlight the transformative role of faculty mentorship at UCLA. Professor Morosini, a member of the CMRS-CEGS faculty and professor of European Languages and Transcultural Studies (ELTS), mentored Rojas during and after the course. Together, they turned her final paper into a presentation for Undergraduate Research Week, the only poster on literature that year, before refining it for submission to the ABA Velli Prize.
“Like the female characters we studied, Alexa kept going even after the course had ended,” said Morosini. “I am so proud of her and so inspired. Her creativity and determination are exactly what make undergraduate teaching so rewarding.”
For Morosini, mentorship means helping students find their voices beyond the classroom. “It allows conversations to live on, encouraging students to connect the past and present as they imagine the future. Mentorship means raising the bar while making each student feel seen and important.”
The recognition of Rojas’s work comes at a meaningful time. 2025 marks the 650th anniversary of Giovanni Boccaccio’s death, which CMRS-CEGS is commemorating with the upcoming conference On Land and Across the Sea: Boccaccio’s Other Wor(l)ds. Junctions and Interweavings (October 3–4, 2025), organized by Professor Morosini. Rojas is set to present her paper and is the only undergraduate speaker.
We share this story as an inspiration for other students in our classes, and as a model of mentorship for faculty across campus. If you’d like to share a story of your student’s success, please contact us at cmrs@humnet.ucla.edu.