About Joanne

Joanne M. Ferraro, the Albert W. Johnson Distinguished Professor of History Emerita, is a historian of Renaissance and early modern Europe. A specialist in the history of marriage and the family in Italy, she has published numerous books and articles.

Ferraro has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the Gladys Krieble Foundation. At SDSU, she has been recognized as a Phi Beta Kappa lecturer and received the 2010 Alumni Association Outstanding Faculty Award for the College of Arts and Letters. She serves as President of the International Friends of the Marciana Library in Venice.

In 2015, Ferraro was selected to present the 25th Albert W. Johnson Research Lecture as an outstanding historian, highly accomplished scholar, and prolific author, and for her leadership and service to the campus and her academic discipline. The lecture series was sponsored by Graduate and Research Affairs and the University Research Council to recognize SDSU faculty who make exceptional research and teaching contributions. Recipients of this award are designated as distinguished professors in their disciplines. Watch her presentation: The Historian as Detective: Sex Crimes in Early Modern Venice below.