Viviana Palumberi, Mathematics

«The first year was very tough: for me it was important to keep my place in Pavia also because of the scholarship, otherwise I probably would have had to return home 😉 From the second year onwards everything went “downhill”;-)»

Having graduated from the Nautical Technical Institute as a Master Mariner, Viviana is uncertain about her future: sailing or studying Astronomy?
She opts for Mathematics, what she will later call «the English of science, indeed, much more; the only true universal language of humanity: it encompasses the different psychologies and mentalities of people expressed in a single language made of symbols and logical passages." To study Maths she chooses Pavia and the Collegio Nuovo, founded by a mathematical entrepreneur. At the admissions competition, a great success, especially when she declares to the commissioner, Professor Gianni Gilardi, that her chosen topic is spherical trigonometry, used for navigation.
Since her freshman year, Viviana has taken advantage of the opportunities offered by the College: the conferences (she will hear about Astronomy from Tullio Regge, just as soon as she arrives at the College!), two stays for the Ferienkurs of the University of Heidelberg, partner of Nuovo, which offer her the rudiments of a language then necessary for her future. She is also admitted to the IUSS, where she will be among the first graduates of the School later recognized by the MIUR as a "Higher School with a special system".

While Viviana is preparing her thesis, on August 26th her boyfriend receives confirmation of a PhD position in Basel; at the beginning of September Viviana goes to her supervisor and announces her intention to get married at the end of the month and then leave immediately with her husband. Well: September 26th, graduation with full marks, wedding on the 29th, move to Switzerland on the 30th. Early October, first job interview for an IT company: hired!
However, a very difficult start, also marked by the lack of daily study of mathematics. The strategy then is... enroll in a PhD in Biomathematics, also considering the difficulty of the "academic market" in finding a mathematician who will start studying Biology; but the College also helped to broaden horizons. In her Swiss "navigation", there is another linguistic obstacle, after German: the official language in scientific research at the University of Basel is English.
Ten years after her entry into the College, the Alumnae Association will award her with one of the first Research Prizes, because she was the first signatory (with her husband!) of a research presented at the European Conference on Mathematical and Theoretical Biology in Edinburgh.
Two years before obtaining the title of PhD, her first daughter was born.

An advert on the bulletin board asking for a teacher at Aarau High School, the same one where Einstein graduated, leads her to apply. She was hired immediately, on the condition of completing two years of Lehrdiplom. Another "tough" period: a small child, teaching in another town (therefore another dialect!) and exams in parallel. She succeeds. And the next goal? She tells us: «My new (and still current) undertaking will be to expand the family and be able to make everything fit together, family life and work outside the office: organization is not always easy, it is based a lot on team work, with my husband we always manage to do great things together :-)» But, as always, Viviana succeeds and in the last year Tania also arrives, the third child after Dalia and Rossana.

Venture out: «By abandoning my job as a programmer, I was leaving the certain for the uncertain, but the stakes were high, the realization of my nature, of my adventurous and calculating nature at the same time.» (Nuovità, n. 18, 2007)