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I decided that logic would be the occupation of my life as early as 1967, during my first year in math. I was 20 in '68. I got my degree in mathematics in 1971 in Padua.

I spent year 1971-72 in Berkeley, where I took a seminar run by Tarski (see Alfred Tarski, Life and Logic by Anita & Sol Feferman, pages 350-351).

In the early 70s I was in Siena, in the research group of Roberto Magari. I was one of the founders of provability logic, the first original research in logic in Italy after Peano. The de Jongh-Sambin fixed point theorem in 1976 is one of the outcomes.

In early 80s I wrote the notes of the only book by Martin-Löf on his type theory.
Since then, I have based all my mathematical research on type theory. I started formal topology in mid 80s, at first with Per Martin-Löf. The Basic Picture, begun in '95, is my personal contribution to it, and to constructive mathematics.

Beginning in 1995, I described logical constants by means of the principle of reflection. It gave rise to basic logic: every known logic is obtained as a very natural extension.

I am a constructivist by nature. I have always cultivated an intense interest in foundational questions.
I developed since around 1990 a dynamic view.

I was the first president (1987-93) of the Italian Association of Logic and Applications.
Since 1998, I am the coordinator of a national project on constructive methods in mathematics and in computer science.

I live in Padua, 2 minutes from La Specola (a legend says that Galilei used his telescope there for the first time) and half an hour from Venice.
The walnut desk in my office at the department was previously owned by Gregorio Ricci Curbastro
I have a wife (Silvia) and a daughter (Sara).

Giovanni Sambin