Maria Silvia Lucido was born in Vicenza on April 22, 1963. In 1986 she enrolled as a mathematics student at the Faculty of Mathematics, Physics and
Natural Sciences of the University of Padua, after having worked for 7 years first at a bank and later in a travel agency. In 1991 she graduated summa cum laude. The argument  of her undergraduate thesis, written under the supervision of Franco Napolitani, was "The simplicial complex associated to the subnormality relation in finite groups". She continued her studies at the University of Padua and in 1996 she was awarded  her PhD (Dottorato di Ricerca) on a thesis entitled "the prime graph of finite groups"
("Il Prime Graph dei gruppi finiti"), written under the supervision of Franco Napolitani and co-supervised by Carlo Casolo. From 1996 to 1999 she held a post-doc position at the University of Padua. During that period she spend six months at the Michigan State University on a Fulbright fellowship. In 1999 she got a permanent research position at the University of Udine. During her academic career she distinguished herself by her intellectual honesty, generosity, her excellent research and teaching. She injected enthusiasm into her students, many of which chose her as their supervisor of their theses.
Maria Sylvia was one of the organizers of this Summer School from the very beginning. This School definitely owes his existence to her enthusiasm and the ability of managing and solving (last minute) problems.
On March 4, 2008, Maria Silvia tragically died in a car accident. She is survived by her husband Roberto Battagion and two sons, Giulio and Mattia.