Maria Teresa Borgato was born in Rovigo in 1950. She is married and has a daughter. She graduated cum laude in mathematics at the University of Ferrara in 1973 presenting a thesis on "The existence and solution of partial differential equations with constant coefficients". She was awarded a CNR grant from 1973 to 75, and a university grant from 1975 to 77, after which she became assistant at the chair of mathematical analysis and temporary lecturer at the University of Ferrara. From 1st August 1980 she became Associate Professor of mathematics (degree course in Chemistry), and in 1989 she was given the chair in Complementary Mathematics (degree course in Mathematics). In 2001 she successfully took part in a national public competition for professorship, and from January 2005 she became full Professor in Complementary Mathematics at the University of Ferrara until retirement (November 1, 2020). She is currently an adjunct professor at the same university.
Her teaching duties covered: Didactics of Mathematics, Complementary Mathematics I and II, Mathematical Software for Teaching Mathematics.
From 1998 to 2009 she was Coordinator of the Physics-Informatics-Mathematics Section of Specialisation School for Secondary Teaching (SSIS) in Ferrara, and SSIS lecturer in charge of the courses in the Didactics of Mathematics.
Since 2005 to November 2020 she has been in charge of the national MIUR project: "Piano Lauree Scientifiche - Matematica" within the University of Ferrara.
From January 2009 to November 2012 she has been the President of the Degree Course and the Specialist Degree Course in Mathematics.
Since 2013 she has been Coordinator of TFA (Teacher Training Course) for Mathematics, Mathematics and Physics. She was a member of the PhD Course in Mathematics and supervisor of doctoral theses in History of mathematics and Mathematics Teaching. She was the Rector's delegate for the formation of teachers within the CRUI (the Conference of Italian University Rectors). Since October 2016 to October 2020 she has been a member of the Board of Administration of the University of Ferrara.

Her research work initially dealt with the Geometric measure theory and now her interest concerns the History and Didactics of Mathematics.
She has written over one hundred original works published either in specialised journals both in Italy and abroad under review by referees, or in various volumes edited by internationally recognised experts. She published ten monographies, present in the catalogues of central libraries of well-known American universities (Harvard, Yale, Berkeley etc.) and European national libraries (Paris, London, Vienna, etc.). Particularly worthy of note are the monographies and the studies on J.L. Lagrange, G.B. Guglielmini, G.B. Riccioli, N. Cabeo, the theory of motion and infinitesimal calculus in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the mathematical theory of insurance, mathematics applied to waterways. She has published numerous unedited works of Lagrange, Prony, Vitale Giordani and correspondences of Italian mathematicians. She has been invited speaker at international and national congresses and conferences, including in the past few years :
International Congress of History of Science (Beijing - China 2005, Budapest 2009, Manchester 2013)
International Congress on the Enlightenment (UCLA- Los Angeles 2003, Montpellier 2007)
Joint Meeting UMI-DMV (Perugia 2007), Joint Meeting Meeting RSME-SCM-SEMA-SIMAI-UMI (Bilbao 2014)
ESHS International Conference (Crakow 2006, Vienna 2008, Barcelona 2010, Prague 2011, Athens 2012, Lisboa 2014, Prague 2016, London 2018, Bologna 2020)
'Euler and Modern Science' - Russian Academy of Sciences (St Petersburg, 2007)
International Congress of Mathematicians (Hyderabad, India, 2010)
ISAAC Congress (Moscow 2011), International Conference "Actual Problems of Analysis, Differential Equations and Algebra" (EMJ, Moscow 2019).
IAHS Conference (Athens 2019).

She was the national coordinator of the European ISSUE project (Integrating Subject Science Understanding in Europe) financed by the European Commission DG Education and Culture (2005-2008).
She is the President of the Italian Society for the History of Mathematics. She is a member of the Academy of Sciences of Ferrara, the Académie Internationale d'Histoire des Sciences, the Italian Society for the History of Science, a member, and in the scientific committee for four years, of the European Society for the History of Science.
She is a member of the Editorial Board of the following journals: Bollettino di Storia delle Scienze Matematiche, Annali on line della Didattica e della Formazione Docente, and (until 2020) a member of the Scientific Board of the Annali di Storia delle Università Italiane and the Annali dell'Università di Ferrara Sez. VII Scienze Matematiche. She is a reviewer for Mathematical Reviews, and other journals (Annali di storia delle Università Italiane, Nuncius, Isis, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science,...). She was a member of the Italian Commission for the Teaching of Mathematics (CIIM) of the Italian Mathematical Union. She is the President of the Ferrara section of the National Association of Mathematics ah Physics Teachers (Mathesis).