She was never exactly an easy child. A runaway, insolent, aggressive, and impossible to rein in, she spent much of her childhood moving from one foster home to another, consistently exhausting the patience of everyone who tried to look after her.

By her teenage years, she had become the terror of her school. Rebellious, provocative, and prone to fighting, she skipped classes and openly defied authority—earning such a reputation that some teachers simply chose to avoid any confrontation with her.

In adulthood, things didn't improve. Petty theft, occasional drug dealing, living in squalid squats, keeping the wrong company, and repeated run-ins with the police became her daily reality.

At 19, she accompanied her boyfriend at the time during a robbery. When the cashier refused to hand over the money, a struggle broke out, and her boyfriend opened fire. She hadn't pulled the trigger herself, but she was there—she was a participant in the robbery—and a man died.

Convicted for her role in the crime, she was sentenced to ten years in prison.

Six years later, she has become an inmate whom others generally avoid provoking. But prison also brought about something that no one—herself included—had ever foreseen.

She began to study.

At first, it was only because she had nothing better to do with her days.

Then, she proved to be remarkably gifted.

She has since earned a master’s degree in social sciences and is now working on a doctorate focused on the dynamics of crowd movements. She can hold forth for an hour on collective behavior, social contagion, and the spontaneous formation of groups—before returning to a cell where she is still serving the final four years of her sentence.

The girl who used to terrify her teachers has become a researcher. She remains, however, exactly the same pain in the ass