Dr. Kathryn Willis Wolfe is Professor of French at Penn State Erie, the Behrend College. She spent her Junior Year in France with the Smith College program in Paris and received her B.A. in French from the University of Illinois (1970), graduating Phi Beta Kappa. She received her M.A. (1973) and Ph.D. (1977) in French language and literature from Princeton University. Before coming to Behrend in 1986, she taught as a Visiting Assistant Professor for four years at Allegheny College (1982-86). Dr. Wolfe won the 1994 Council of Fellows Excellence in Teaching Award and the 1998 Founders Prize in Foreign Literature and Languages from the Philological Association of the Carolinas.

Her research interests are focused on 17th-century French comic theater, particularly that of Molière and its ties to the Italian improvisational theater (the Commedia dell’Arte). She has also studied and edited a number of French scholarly correspondences from the early 17th century with her husband, Dr. Phillip J. Wolfe of Allegheny College.