Dr. Vanessa Borilot is a native of the Guadeloupe Islands, French-speaking islands located in the Caribbean known for their rich literary history.  She specializes in French and Francophone  literature and culture.  In 2005, Borilot became a language assistant in the United Kingdom and then moved to the United States to attend graduate school.  She received her master’s degree in French and Francophone Studies from the University of Delaware and her Ph.D. in French and Francophone World Studies from the University of Iowa.  She studies and teaches a curriculum focused on French history and culture.  She includes culture and history in her language courses in order to teach her students the areas of the field that she felt had been left out of her own curriculum in school, focusing on the situations that shape language.