Prix FDA Monte-Carlo: Special Prize FDA (Woman of the Year) Award 2025
21 mars 2025

The 2025 theme of the Monte-Carlo Woman of the Year Award: space research ✨
It was with great pride that I saw my Special FDA Award trophy awarded to Dr. Ing. Amalia Ercoli Finzi, the first woman to graduate from the Politecnico di Milano in the 1960s with a PhD in Aerospace Engineering, an astrophysicist and advisor to NASA.
What a woman, what a career!

As a female PhD in electronics engineering, graduating from the Faculty of Engineering in Genoa in 1985—about 25 years after the first female pioneers—I understand how difficult it must have been, at that time, to make a name for oneself in such a male-dominated world.
I remember a memorable start to the new school year: in 1980, in my third year, during the first electronics class, Professor Chiabrera counted us in the amphitheater.
There were about a hundred of us students... and fewer than ten women!
I don’t know how many of my male colleagues completed the course, but all the women in my year group graduated. A small symbolic victory in a context where parity was still far from being achieved.

In the 1980s, scientific fields were still considered male bastions. Therefore, I would like to extend my sincere and admiring congratulations to Amalia for her remarkable career—a source of inspiration for all generations.