24/01/2018

Triplets from Espírito Santo dream big in Mathematics

Reproduction from O Estado de S.Paulo

In Santa Leopoldina, a municipality in the rural area of Espírito Santo, 67 km from Vitória, a simple house, without internet access, holds 14 medals from the Brazilian Mathematics Olympiad for Public Schools (OBMEP). These were won by the 17-year-old triplets Fabiele, Fábia, and Fabíola Loterio. Besides the medals, the house where the girls live with their parents, who work in family farming, holds stories of dedication to their studies and many dreams. “We want to be researchers, teach at universities, and one day I see myself knowing everything about this subject, maybe a genius,” says Fabiele, laughing.

To reach the podium at the Brazilian Mathematical Olympiad (OBMEP), the triplets often studied with borrowed books. And the results appeared in their very first year of competition, in 2011, when they were in the 5th grade. “Nobody believed it. We passed the first phase, entered the second, and ended up receiving an honorable mention,” recalls Fabíola. “Then, in 2012 and 2013, I won the first medals in the family.” Fabíola then joined the Junior Scientific Initiation Program and began studying one Saturday a month at the Federal University of Espírito Santo (Ufes). “It was different there. I was able to see mathematics with different eyes, and that made me want to learn more.”

In 2014, it was the sisters' turn to win medals and enter the program. “We thought we hadn't done well. When the national results came, it was surprising. We entered the program and met other people passionate about mathematics. We left home at 4:30 am for the 8:30 am class. All the effort was worth it,” says Fábia.

Later, they studied at the Federal Institute of Espírito Santo (Ifes), in Santa Teresa, a mountainous region of Espírito Santo. They spent the week there, where they completed their high school education integrated with Agronomy. This year, they took the National High School Exam (Enem) and applied for a place at university through the Unified Selection System (Sisu). The course they chose could be none other than Mathematics.

Unlike most teenage girls their age, the sisters never dreamed of meeting famous artists. They did, however, imagine what it would be like to be face-to-face with the 38-year-old Brazilian Artur Avila, the first Latin American to receive the Fields Medal, the Nobel Prize of Mathematics. The meeting took place in 2015 in Rio, at an awards ceremony for the Mathematics Olympiad. “The guy is superior when it comes to mathematics. Who knows, maybe in the future we'll work with him. We know it's difficult, almost impossible, but we're already thinking about becoming experts,” says Fabiele.

The girls' parents had little opportunity to study. Paulo José Loterio, 61, stopped in the 1st grade and the mother, Lauriza Luiza Loterio, 54, in the 4th. “Besides the triplets, we have another older daughter, and we never let any of them touch a hoe. I always showed them that their place was studying to have a future different from our present,” says the mother, who only discovered in the seventh month of her pregnancy that she was expecting triplets.

Her older sister is also a source of pride and inspiration. Flavia Loterio, 26, a doctoral student in Biotechnology at Ufes, was the first daughter of farmers in the district to attend university.

Capacity . Professor Frederico César Ribeiro, from Ifes, has been following the three girls since 2015. According to him, they have above-average learning capacity. "In addition, they are hardworking and have a very broad knowledge of the area." Ribeiro says that the arrival of the medalists has increased the number of students at Ifes. "The girls influence their classmates and create an environment conducive to study."