Dr. Vittoria Pagnotto
Vintage_photobooth_portrait.jpg
Photo of Vittoria c. 1952. By freeparking (Flickr) [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Basic Info:

Player: AquaBlack

Position: Diminuitive Astrophysicist.

Demeanor: Vittoria has a peppy, wide-eyed look to her, and is at least a head shorter than the next shortest person in the room. She never speaks without a good reason, but when she opens her mouth, every word is deliberate and focused towards a specific purpose. She has no tolerance for fools.

Nature: Vittoria is introspective, with a tendency to overthink and spiral into conclusions stuck in her head. She has a very hot-and-cold attitude on life, willing to work 20-30 hours straight on a project if interested and unbothered by others. However, at the end of it, she'd sleep for 15 hours and hell would freeze over before she woke up. When she is in 'go' mode she puts every effort towards achieving a result or completing a mission, but outside of this mode she can be rather apathetic or even pessimistic.

Description: Measuring in at 145cm (About 4'9") and 80kg (About 176lbs), Vittoria cuts a rather stout figure. She has jet black, slightly frizzed hair kept back in a neat bun and covered with a simple knit kerchief. She has fawn-brown skin and dark brown eyes. To work, she wears a simple beige lab smock over a plain blouse and skirt. She prefers pastels.

Stats:

Health
  • Physical Health: 7
  • Mental Health: 7
Attributes
  • Physical Defense: 4
  • Mental Defense: 5
  • Perception: 4
  • Agility: 2
  • Strength: 2
Skills
  • Ranged: 3
  • Survival: 3
  • Academics: 5
  • Science: 6
Specialties

You have twelve points to distribute among as many or as few specialty skills as you see fit (but at least three is almost always warranted). Remember to explain what each specialty entails.

  • Astrophysics: 4. Dr. Pagnotto's at the top of her field. Too bad most of what she studies shouldn't exist. +6 when trying to identify or study space-related objects.
  • Killer Grader: 3. Dr. Pagnotto's time spent teaching at a university and grading papers has made her hyper-aware of flaws and critical errors, especially logical fallacies. +4 when Vittoria is looking for breaking points in systems or machines. This is only half as effective if she does not have access to the schematics or is unfamiliar with how the type of system or machine being examined is supposed to work.
  • How's the View from Down There?: 3. Vittoria is ridiculously short. +2 when trying to navigate areas with low ceilings or blend into a crowd of children. This does not apply to small areas in general, as Vittoria is plump.
  • Safe Driver: 2. Vittoria grew up learning to drive in the crowded streets of New York, and then moved to Italy where all the roads were thin, windy, mountainous, and full of snow. +2 when driving in difficult conditions (Storms, poor road quality, heavy traffic, etc.).

Gear:

  • 3 small notebooks
  • 2-4 sharpened pencils
  • 0-2 dull pencils
  • 1 small pocket knife
  • 2 lighters
  • 1 and a half packs of decent cigarettes
  • 2 granola bars
  • 1 M1911A1 pistol (Field only)
  • Canteen (Field only)
  • Backpack (Field only)
  • Field Research Kit (Field only - duh)
    • 20 plastic resealable gallon-sized bags
    • 2 pair plastic gloves
    • Trowel
    • Set of dental picks
    • Tweezer
    • Magnifying glass
Equipment:

None.

Possessions:

  • Bookshelf
    • Copies of students' old theses (Thesises???)
    • 3-4 back issues of each of the top physics and astrophysics journals
    • Physics textbooks
    • Mathematics textbooks
    • 1 computer science textbook
  • Piggy bank in shape of rabbit
  • Microscope
  • 4 sets of skirts and blouses in a variety of nice pastel colors

Personal History:

Vittoria was born in 1903 in the Bronx, New York to a middle-class family of immigrants. She was the youngest girl of six children. Her family's relatively good wealth meant that she was able to go on hunting trips with her father and two older siblings.

In 1919 she took an opportunity to study at the Sapienza University of Rome, and was admitted to the university's tiny physics program in 1920. Due to the small amount of students, she was able to use the laboratory for any sort of research desired. She did no small amount of research into astrophysics during this time, touching on the edge of the anomalous on occasion without realizing.

She had to relearn much of her native Italian over the first few years, but eventually received a laurea (Italian version of a doctorate and highest degree in Italy until 1999) in 1924. She continued to study at a variety of universities across Europe, eventually applying for a chair of mathematical physics and gaining professorship at the recently-merged University of Milan in 1926. She would later return to the United States in 1934 due to growing tensions in Europe, and to move into a professorship in the University of California, Berkely's physics department. Although like most physicists of the time, she certainly dabbled into nuclear physics, her focus remained on astrophysics.

During the late 1940s and early 1950s, a lot of her research was reexamined due to the emerging space race between the United States and the Soviet Union. During this time, her research picked up far more grants, and she may have been offered a high position in NASA, if not for one problem.

In 1957, she made a discovery that drew the attention of the Foundation. As a necessity, she was brought in in order to provide expert information, and was later offered a job with the Foundation.

Languages

  • Italian
  • English
  • Latin (She's a little rusty since universities in the United States do not use Latin as much as Italian ones do.)

Miscellaneous:

  • Vittoria is old (Just shy of 56), not dead. She's not helpless. And despite her traditional appearance, she had her college years during the growth of the fascist regime in Italy- and one odd benefit of that regime was increased rights for women. She's quiet, not meek.
  • She doesn't have lung cancer from all the smoking, but she probably should.
  • Most of her siblings are still alive, although she doesn't keep up contact with them. She is more likely to keep up contact with old students (Through letters) than family.
  • Vittoria is happily an 'old maid.' In modern days, she would consider herself asexual.

XP: 0

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