Valeria Wasserman: Biography, Career, and Her Life With Noam Chomsky
Valeria Wasserman (also known as Valeria Wasserman Chomsky) is a Brazilian translator and linguist with a professional background spanning law, finance, and academic translation. She’s best known publicly as the second wife of American linguist and political thinker Noam Chomsky, whom she married in 2014, but her own career—built well before that marriage—stands on its own.
Here’s what’s actually documented about her background, education, career, and public life.
Who Is Valeria Wasserman?
| Full Name | Valeria Wasserman (Valeria Wasserman Chomsky) |
| Born | 1963, Brazil |
| Nationality | Brazilian |
| Profession | Translator, linguist; background in law and capital markets |
| Education | Law (Universidade Federal Fluminense); Languages & Linguistics (PUC-Rio); Capital Market Analysis (University of São Paulo) |
| Spouse | Noam Chomsky (m. 2014) |
| Stepchildren | Aviva, Diane, and Harry Chomsky |
Education and Early Career
Valeria Wasserman built an academic background across three distinct fields. She studied law at the Universidade Federal Fluminense in Brazil, later pursued languages and linguistics at the Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio), and completed a specialization in capital market analysis at the University of São Paulo.
That combination of legal, financial, and linguistic training shaped her early career, which included roles connected to law and administrative work before she moved more fully into translation.
Career as a Translator and Linguist
Professionally, Wasserman works as a Portuguese-English translator, handling academic and specialized texts. She has worked as a translator connected to the Institute for Advanced Studies at the University of São Paulo, drawing on her academic training in both linguistics and finance to work across technical and scholarly material.
Her legal and capital-markets training gives her translation work a particular strength in technical and regulatory subject matter—an unusual combination that sets her apart from translators with a purely language-focused background.
Marriage to Noam Chomsky
Valeria Wasserman married Noam Chomsky in 2014, six years after the death of his first wife, Carol Chomsky, in 2008. Chomsky, who is decades her senior, has spoken publicly about their relationship in warm terms. Through the marriage, she became stepmother to Chomsky’s three children from his first marriage: Aviva, Diane, and Harry.
Wasserman has occasionally stepped into the public eye on her husband’s behalf. In June 2024, when false reports circulated claiming Chomsky had died, it was Wasserman who confirmed to the Associated Press that the reports were untrue. She has also spoken publicly about the Chomsky family’s past association with Jeffrey Epstein, describing how Epstein had presented himself to them as a science philanthropist before that relationship became a source of scrutiny.
A Note on Accuracy
A number of low-quality “biography” sites have published inconsistent, unverifiable details about Wasserman—inflated job titles, invented company names, and speculative personal facts. This overview sticks to details corroborated by credible reporting (including the Associated Press) and multiple independent sources, rather than repeating unverified filler.
Frequently Asked Questions
- Who is Valeria Wasserman? A Brazilian translator and linguist, and the second wife of Noam Chomsky.
- What is her profession? She works as a Portuguese-English translator with a background in law and capital markets.
- When did she marry Noam Chomsky? In 2014.
- Does she have children? She has no biological children of her own but is stepmother to Chomsky’s three children.
Conclusion
Valeria Wasserman’s story is often reduced to her marriage to one of the most influential intellectuals of the last century, but her own path—law student, capital markets specialist, and academic translator—reflects a career built well before she became publicly known. What’s documented about her paints a picture of someone whose professional grounding in language, law, and finance continues to inform her work today.
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