THURSDAY, JUNE 23, 2016
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Gigliola Staffilani and her parable to success
LAVINIA PISANI
G
igliola Staffilani is the
only
Italian woman teach-
ing full time pure mathe-
matics at Massachusetts Institute
of Technology (MIT).
Originally from Martinsicuro,
a
town in the Abruzzi region, her
future was supposed to be as a
hairstylist.
"I am glad that I could be a
role
model for many girls who
may be interested in becoming a
professional mathematician," she
writes during our email interview.
In fact, her story proofs that
math is for women as well.
Both her parents were farmers
and
the first one in the family to
go
to college was her older broth-
er. Staffilani was a hard working
student but as stability vanished
with the tragic loss of her dad,
who passed away of colon cancer
when she was 10, her priority
became to financially help her
mom.
Still, mathematics was her
landmark.
"It was the part of the world
were there is only one reality.
Everything is logic, maybe diffi-
cult, but absolute," Staffilani said
during a former interview with
Riviera Oggi.
Thanks to outstanding perfor-
mances in high school,
Staffilani's mother conveyed a
career, as a secondary school, or
high school, math teacher was a
good path for her daughter to pur-
sue. So, she enrolled at the
University of Bologna and gradu-
ated in math.
Continued to page 3
Gigliola Staffilani. Professor of Mathematics at the Department of Mathematics Massachusetts Institute of Technology
