She has been at Augsburg since 2000 and earned her PhD in economics from the University of Illinois-Chicago. As a child of Greek immigrants, Stella learned English as a second language in the Chicago public schools and was the first in her family to graduate from college. Her family moved back to Greece at age 16 and she lived in Athens, Greece for 6 years until she returned to the U.S. for graduate school. Stella is energized working with immigrants and first generation college students on quantitative student faculty research projects. Her teaching goal is to develop rigorous, analytic problem solving skills through the use of economic theory and real world applications.