She was a research professor and chair of the English Department at St. John's University in New York City, and a prolific writer who published plays, short stories, novels, poetry, literary criticism, and translations.

Her doctoral dissertation on The Women in Dante's Divine Comedy and Spenser's Faerie Queene earned her a Woodbridge Honorary Fellowship, and she received a Ph.D. in comparative literature from Columbia in 1963.

[4][5] In addition to her teaching and scholarly work, Paolucci wrote plays, mystery novels, and award-winning poetry.

[2] In 1985, President Ronald Reagan appointed her to the Fellowship Board of the National Graduate Fellows Program.

[1] She received an honorary degree from Lehman College, and was recognized by the Italian government for translating and editing a selection of poems by Giacomo Leopardi.