“Computational epidemiology doesn’t provide us with forecast, it can’t tell us what will actually happen but instead what could happen given certain, specific conditions”. Few imagined less than two years ago that data and statistical modelling could be so important in facing a health emergency. However Nowadays, computational epidemiologists are in fact among the heroes fighting Covid-19, and Vittoria Colizza is one of them. She gained a PhD in Physics at SISSA in 2004 and is currently Head of Research at INSERM (French National Institute for Health and Medical Research) where she leads the EPIcx Lab (Epidemics in complex environments). And there is more: she has been an advisor to President Macron since the beginning of the Covid Emergency, and in 2020 she received a knighthood of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic from the Italian President Sergio Mattarella, and is often under the spotlight of the Italian media.