All right,” said Susan. “I’m not stupid. You’re saying humans need… fantasies to make life bearable.”
REALLY? AS IF IT WAS SOME KIND OF PINK PILL? NO. HUMANS NEED FANTASY TO BE HUMAN. TO BE THE PLACE WHERE THE FALLING ANGEL MEETS THE RISING APE.
― Terry Pratchett, Hogfather
I was raised on a strange mixture of mountains, Terry Pratchett, and videogames. Eventually, I decided to become a mathematician: this has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move1.
In 2024(+ε) I received a PhD in mathematics from the University of Münster, where I spent three years at the Cluster of Excellence Mathematics Münster. I get bored very easily, so alongside research I also worked part-time at the Science Communication office, and organized all sorts of things for the Graduate School.
This made me realize that the one single thing I enjoy the most is stories. I like telling them, hearing them, taking them apart to build them up again. I believe in the power that narratives have over our lives and in the profound need to change some of them, especially around mathematics. Particularly, I like to tell stories through people: narrating my personal story, like I did when I talked about the challenges that queer people experience in academia, or amplifying the voices of others, like I did in the podcast I hosted and produced for the Cluster.
I am currently a student of the Master in Science Communication “F. Prattico”, at SISSA, in Trieste.
1Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe