Her Husband Speaks
"Pia, do you remember…"
Enrico Gratton
Her Journey
A brilliant mind and a generous heart.
Born Maria Pia Innocenzi in the hill town of Grottaferrata, just outside Rome, on July 2, 1948. From the beginning she had the sharp curious mind that would later carry her through cum laude honors in Mathematics at the University of Rome in 1975, with a thesis in Astronomy.
She married Enrico Gratton, and together they raised three children — Claudio, Fabio, and Valentina. In 1978 the family moved to Urbana-Champaign, Illinois, where Pia learned to program computers and began a new chapter of her professional life.
From 1980 to 1986 she worked as a programmer at the Colwell Company; from 1987 onward she was a systems administrator and research programmer in the Chemistry Department at the University of Illinois — a role she held with grace and brilliance until her life was cut short on October 31, 1995.
