After receiving an honours degree in Italian and French from University College Cork, Ireland, Louise moved to the United States to pursue graduate studies in Italian. She earned a Master’s degree from Rutgers University in 2001 and then a Ph.D. from the same institution in 2006. As a Teaching Assistant at Rutgers she taught a wide range of courses from language courses at all levels to surveys of Italian literature. From 2005 to 2007 she taught as a lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania and in her second year there she also served as coordinator of third and fourth semester language courses. She joined the faculty at Georgetown as Visiting Assistant Professor in the fall of 2007.