About Us

Established in 2007, the Italia Institute offered its first courses at The Winery in Fargo.

Our Italian-American founder, Michael Rippo Nelson, fell in love with passing on his passion for Italy after teaching summer Italian classes at NDSU in of 2003 and 2005. In 2000-01, Michael spent a year studying at the 800-year-old University of Padua in northeastern Italy. Previously he received language training from the Universita’ degli Stranieri in Perugia and the Istituto Dante Alighieri in Florence.

Originally from North Dakota, Michael currently lives in the lakes country of Minnesota, where he works as a Study Abroad Advisor for the Institute for Study Abroad Butler University as well as directing and teaching at the Italia Institute.