Gabriele Benedetti is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mathematics at VU Amsterdam. He was born in Rome, Italy, in 1987, and completed both his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in mathematics at the University of Pisa and Scuola Normale Superiore. In 2015, he obtained his PhD from the University of Cambridge. Following his doctoral studies, Gabriele held postdoctoral positions at the University of Münster, the University of Leipzig, and the MSRI in Berkeley. He was later appointed as a Juniorprofessor at Heidelberg University before joining our department in 2021.
Raffaella Mulas interviewed him in October 2024.
It is a great pleasure to interview you, Gabri! Let’s start from the beginning: when and how did you decide to study mathematics?
I have liked mathematics since primary school. I don’t know exactly why, but I think I was attracted both by its fascinating structure and by the challenge of solving new problems. This is also why I started to listen to music and play the bass guitar in a metal band during my teenage years. I always liked to learn new songs and rehearse them with my friends in my father’s garage. The neighbors were less happy, though!
Anyways, during high school there was a math teacher who was very active in the Mathematics Olympiad and brought many of us to participate at local and national competitions in Italy. I had fun doing mathematics with other kids and the teacher was such an inspiring figure, full of positive energy! That is why I decided to study mathematics at university. At first my parents were not super enthusiastic about this idea because they saw mathematics as an abstract subject with not so many job perspectives. Then, I mentioned that a music career would also be something cool. And then they went like: “Well, mathematics is not such a bad option after all…” Jokes aside, my parents have always been very supportive and have been there for me in all these years despite the distance!
Haha, I love this story about your parents! And how does music still play a role in your life today? I know it's still important to you since we first met at a Stefano Bollani concert in Leipzig back in 2017. Over the years, we became friends, later colleagues, and I’ve had the chance to join you at concerts and even hear you play guitar! How do you continue to integrate music into your life and your routine?
Yes, I remember that the music scene in Leipzig was absolutely amazing! Also here in Amsterdam I go regularly to music concerts. Last May, we went to listen to Tool with Eric, Riya and Casper from the department, and we had a lot of fun! When I am at home, I like to put on some CDs. In the morning, they wake me up and in the evening they give the right rhythm while cooking. Even if I feel a bit like an old dinosaur, I could not get used to streaming services. My girlfriend likes to say that I’m the last person in the world who’s still buying CDs. And as many people did, during the pandemic I also wanted to start with something new. Instead of learning how to bake, I bought a keyboard and now I spend most of my evenings inventing and recording weird pop songs. The bass is also still there and every now and then I go play with Álvaro, a math professor in Utrecht, who is a fine guitarist. We love to play a list of crazy metal riffs one after the other!
This is so nice! Recently, I’ve seen you try improv theater and Dungeons & Dragons, and in both you seemed like a natural talent—very funny and dynamic! I’ve also heard from students that they really appreciate the energy and engagement you bring to your lectures. What’s your secret? Does it have something to do with the fact that you work on dynamical systems?
Hehe, I never thought about that actually. I don’t feel I have a natural talent to be true but I like situations like these where you need to be both creative and to accept a challenge: they trigger the inner mathematician within me! So, I guess one important element is not being afraid of these situations and accepting the uncertainty that they bring. When preparing a lecture I also like to put myself in the students’ shoes and see how to put them in the best position to participate. The teaching qualification programme that the VU offers was very inspiring in that sense, too. On top of that, trying to engage the students in class is also a way of feeling less like I am delivering a product that is rated by the audience, and more like we (the students and I) are in the process together and we are all responsible for a successful lecture. This puts some pressure away from me.
I completely agree, and this is so inspiring! It’s clear that your approach really resonates with students and creates such an engaging environment. My next question is, was there a particular moment that significantly changed the course of your academic journey?
I must say that deciding to go for a PhD was an important moment since I was not sure at all about what I wanted to do after university. After a supervision meeting with my master thesis supervisor, Alberto Abbondandolo, I told him that I might be interested in doing a PhD abroad. He picked a sheet from his pile of scrap paper on his office table and made a list of names of colleagues and cities (Lisbon, Chicago, Rio de Janeiro, Cambridge, ...): they all seemed exotic to me. I remember this episode as it happened yesterday, and I regret so much that I lost that sheet of paper at some point: it was such a dear memory.
That's such a sweet memory! Funny enough, the exact same thing happened to me with my master's thesis supervisor—except I was lucky to keep the sheet where she wrote down her list of PhD suggestions!
I am sooo jealous!
Hehe! Now, you grew up in Rome but spent your summers in a small village with just 150 inhabitants—your parents’ hometown. What was that like? Do you have any favorite memories from those summers?
Mucciafora is really a tiny spot on the Umbrian Apennines in Italy. The majority of people, including my parents, left the village in the Sixties and Seventies to go to Rome to work. For the long school vacations in summer during my childhood, the parents would bring the kids to Mucciafora and leave them with their grandparents while they went back to Rome to work. For us kids that was a paradise: a village with no cars, no parents, and a lot of nature around. We felt like kings and queens. Those summers gave me a sense of community that goes beyond the boundaries of one’s family. At the same time, I could spend a lot of time with my grandparents too. I remember how my grandfather used to bring me for a walk in the surroundings of the village and tell me the names of all the fields, the valleys, and the springs: every little spot had a name and I never really understood when one spot finished and the next started.
This sounds like such a wonderful place to grow up! Thank you for sharing such special memories. What’s your favorite thing about being part of the VU Mathematics Department?
The environment and the interactions here are great and really make the difference for me! When I need some help or advice with practical matters at work, it is easy to find a member of the department who is willing to help out. Also, I love the atmosphere in the common room during lunch, the nice chats in front of the coffee machine with colleagues and students, and the drinks at the Boelebar after the Colloquium talk. They bring me a lot of joy and pull me through the tougher days.
I completely agree with you! And yeah, those Colloquium organizers really do an amazing job! Gabri, your talks and papers are full of beautiful mathematical drawings. How does visualization help you in your research, and what role do drawings play in shaping your mathematical thinking?
Actually, what you see in my slides is likely the hundredth version of the picture because I am not good at all at drawing, hehe! In my research, I study the dynamics of Hamiltonian systems, that is, physical systems where the energy is preserved. Think about the motion of planets around the sun or of charged particles in an electromagnetic field. I am interested in the relationship between the type of orbits of the system and the geometry and topology of the ambient space. For instance, one can quantify the size of a set by looking at the periodic orbits lying on the boundary of the set. The smallest period defines a so-called symplectic capacity which can be used to measure how big the set is. So there is a visual component in my research and I would often scribble trajectories wiggling around on my scrap paper. On the other hand, the methods I use in the proofs come from analysis and therefore after the pictures come the epsilons and deltas!
Haha, this is amazing! Besides mathematics and music, what brings you joy?
I love to spend time with my girlfriend Eleonora: she is a super cool human being! We enjoy small things like having late breakfasts on the weekend, trying out new restaurants or going to the movies. There is a nice theater here at the VU, and we are always curious to discover some new small cinemas in Amsterdam. The choice in town is endless, and each has a different flavor. I am also very lucky to have an awesome group of friends who make me feel at home: it is my Little Italy here below sea level!
This is nice, and the Little Italy group of friends really does sound like something special! I would like to end with a comment rather than a question. While preparing for this interview, I found your PhD thesis. The acknowledgments section is both heartfelt and humorous—filled with stories, friendships, and moments that clearly meant a lot to you. Reading through it, it’s obvious how much you were appreciated by your peers and mentors at Cambridge, and I can confidently say the same is true here at VU. Colleagues and students value not only your work, but also your warmth and positive energy!