Sofía Kovalevskaya

Hello! My name is Sofía. When I was a little girl, I lived in a country called Russia. I loved numbers more than my toys. My room did not have wallpaper with pretty flowers or stars on it. Instead, my walls were covered with pages from my father's old math books from the year 1837! I would look at all the strange symbols for a long time. They looked like a secret code, and I wanted to know what they all meant.

As I got bigger, I wanted to learn more about math. But a long time ago, many big schools, called universities, were just for boys. I knew I had to keep learning, so I was very brave. In 1869, I took a big trip to a new country called Germany. I went there to find a teacher who could help me learn. It was a big adventure, and I was so excited to finally study the numbers and shapes I loved so much.

I worked very, very hard and learned so many things. And guess what? In 1889, I became a teacher at a big university in a country called Sweden! A special teacher at a university is called a professor. I was the first woman in a very long time to become a professor. It made me so happy to share my love of math with all of my students. I lived to be 41 years old. I hope my story shows everyone that girls are amazing at math and can do anything they dream of.