How Undergraduate Research Experience Prepared Actress and Author Aria Mia Loberti

By Molly Stevens ‘20

Acclaimed actress, newly published author, and UNICEF Ambassador Aria Mia Loberti (’20) is still at the beginning of her career. But the University of Rhode Island (URI) alumna credits much of her success to the plethora of her cross-disciplinary research opportunities as an undergraduate student.

At URI, Loberti’s focus was to research as much as she could, in as many subjects as she could. Her resume features academic awards, conference presentations, and peer-reviewed papers in academic journals—all before she graduated URI in 2020. Her efforts earned her a
prestigious US/UK Fulbright Award, which funded her master of research in ancient rhetoric at Royal Holloway, University of London. Upon completion of the program, she began a doctorate in the same subject at The Pennsylvania State University (Penn State). It seemed as if Loberti was on a fast- track to an academic career.

But shortly into her time at Penn State, Loberti’s path shifted. She was chosen from a global search to play the lead role in Netflix’s adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel All The Light We Cannot See. Loberti’s performance was widely praised by critics. The World War II set miniseries, which also starred Mark Ruffalo and Hugh Laurie, went on to be the number one show in 50 countries and was celebrated with Golden Globe and Emmy nominations. For her role, Loberti won a Rising Star Award at the Toronto International Film Festival and an Entertainment Weekly Breaking Big Award. She was nominated for Best Breakthrough Performance at the Film Independent Spirit Awards.

“Without my research background,” Loberti says, “I wouldn’t have known where to begin. I had never acted, and I had no acting training. So, I prepared the way I knew how: with a visit to the library and a couple big spreadsheets.”

Loberti researched historical accounts of the Nazi occupation of France, where the story is set. She listened to radio recordings from the period and dug up archival photographs and interviews. She also spent time understanding the psychology and development of her character.

“We all have foods or scents or even phrases that trigger a core memory or experience that shaped us,” she says. “On top of my historical research, I tried to find these for my character. When I got to set, I let all of my research go so I could embody a character without overintellectualizing. I’ve streamlined this process quite a bit now, but all characters think, respond, even walk differently than I do, since their experiences and upbringing are different to my own.”

In just two years, Loberti transitioned from a budding academic to a breakout actress. After All The Light’s success, she went on to star in the Children’s and Family Emmy award-winning The Spiderwick Chronicles in 2024 and appeared in the series Grey’s Anatomy. Loberti also uses her platform for advocacy, working as a UNICEF ambassador to promote children’s literacy.

According to Loberti, her new career path is more tightly connected to her research background than one might think.

“As an undergrad, all I knew was that I was interested in understanding what makes us human, why we do the things we do, why our culture is the way it is,” Loberti says. “I had so many questions that could be tackled by biology, philosophy, communication, math, politics, physics… I couldn’t pick just one lens to examine the world through.”

Loberti’s research projects at URI reflected this, ranging from understanding paradigm shifts in the higher education system, bridging the work of philosophers Martin Heidegger and Charles Sanders Pierce, studying human-guide dog relations, designing inclusive pedagogy for biology students, analyzing classical liberalism in economics, and studying how deep machine learning models can assist malaria vector surveillance. Four of these projects yielded co-authored papers published in peer-reviewed academic journals. Loberti was a URI coastal and environmental fellow, a URI Arts and Sciences fellow, and a URI science and engineering fellow. She received the URI Excellence Award for Undergraduate Research —the only student to receive the award as a sophomore.

When it came time to apply to graduate school in 2020, Loberti decided to focus on rhetoric since it felt like an amalgamation of everything she studied.

“I am interested in how our words have power to shape the world around us,” she says. “I hoped that focus would help me answer my questions, but it wasn’t until I got cast in All the Light that I realized I could use my research background to reach people around the world.”

Her work transcends the screen. In October 2025, Loberti launched her first children’s picture book, I Am Ingrid, through Scholastic Publishing, the largest publisher of children’s books in the world. The same research-based practice she uses to approach acting
applies to her writing, too.

I Am Ingrid is a heartwarming, funny story that educates kids about service animals. While at URI, Loberti researched the bond between service animals and their human partners through a communication lens. To prepare for writing I Am Ingrid, she revisited that research.

“Writing was always my biggest childhood dream,” says Loberti, “and it is now a major part of my business plan. I have multiple manuscripts in the works that are close to my heart.”

Loberti still, however, feels insecure about her unconventional start to her career. She tries to use her unique perspective as a strength.

“What helped me change careers so abruptly was being able to understand people,” she says. “Acting and writing are both all about understanding humanity, as a collective and individually. When I tell people my acting and writing career has been built on the back of my research background, they often look surprised. But the truth is that every role I inhabit or book I write owes something to my work as an undergraduate researcher at URI.”

“When I tell people my acting and writing career has been built on the back of my research background, they often look surprised. But the truth is that every role I inhabit or book I write owes something to my work as an undergraduate researcher at URI.”

Aria Mia Loberti