The Consortium for Innovation on Nanotechology, Energy and Materials (CINEMA) aims to foster collaboration between Brazil and the United States in renewable energy and nanotechnology. Over 50 professors and researchers are looking to mentor and host Brazilian postdocs at US institutions.
A competitive stipend starting at US$ 44,310 will be offered to selected candidates for 1-2 years through Brazil’s Science without Borders program and the State Funding Agencies.
The CINEMA program is administered by the Renewable and Sustainable Energy Institute (RASEI), a joint institute between the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and the University of Colorado Boulder. Sponsors include MCTI, CNPq, CNPEM, and CONFAP.
Opportunities for fellowships exist at NREL, MIT, Stanford, the University of Colorado Boulder, Colorado School of Mines, and Colorado State University.
Since 2011, every year, SBPMat (the Brazilian Materials Research Society) has been granting awards to researchers with outstanding work in the field of Materials. Such researchers have the opportunity to make a lecture during the SBPMat annual meeting. The name of the award is Memorial Lecture “Joaquim da Costa Ribeiro”, in honor of Prof. Costa Ribeiro, a pioneer in Materials experimental research in Brazil. In 2015, the SBPMat award will be delivered to Eloisa Biasotto Mano, professor emeritus of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), during the opening of the XIV SBPMat Meeting, on September 27 at 19 pm in the SulAmérica Convention Center (Rio de Janeiro). During such event, in addition to receiving the award, Professor Biasotto Mano will speak of the importance of macromolecular materials.
Eloisa Biasotto Mano was born on October 24, 1924 in Rio de Janeiro. By 13 years of age, she did not know what science was, neither did she know what a scientist’s work was about, as these subjects were little present and were inaccessible to the public in Brazil at that time, when there was not even television in the country. However, there were books, and Eloisa had access to many of them in the printing house where her uncle worked as an editor. The girl, who was very serious and responsible, had been assigned to review the proofs of works translated from French. And behold, Eloisa had to read “Madame Curie”, the biography of that scientist woman, born in Poland, who had won two Nobel Prizes, and who had died a few years ago. “I found it great for someone to be so interested in something and have the life she’d had,” recalls Eloisa in an interview in the documentary “Eloisa Mano”. This is how Eloisa discovered the word “chemistry” and began to take an interest in this field of knowledge.
At 20 years of age, Eloisa Mano was admitted into the National School of Chemistry of the University of Brazil (UB), currently UFRJ, to carry out her studies. This occurred in the 1940’s, when less than 40% of women (and less than 50% of men) were literate in the country. Higher education was just beginning; institutions could be counted with the hands´fingers. But Eloisa graduated in Industrial Chemistry in 1947. In 1955 she also obtained the degree of the newly established course of Chemical Engineering. In 1949, she specialized in rubber technology at the National Institute of Technology, also in Rio de Janeiro, one of the few institutions, which, at the time, had infrastructure for experimental research. Given her good performance, she was invited to remain in the institution as a technology chemist, which allowed her to acquire experience in polymer technology.
At that point, Eloisa had higher education degrees, but she felt she could learn more. She thought that there should be a good option abroad and that she could somehow arrange her means to travel, since she could not afford the expenses herself. She then went to the US Embassy and was given great news: there was a scholarship for someone with her profile. Thus, between 1956 and 1957, she was able to study polymer science at the University of Illinois, USA, under the advisory of Professor Carl Shipp Marvel – considered a great scientist and a pioneer in the field of organic chemistry/polymers.
After her experience abroad, Eloisa returned to the National School of Chemistry at UB and worked in Industrial Microbiology for 5 years. In that period, she learned a lot with her mentor, Professor Raymundo Augusto de Castro Moniz de Aragão. Aragão was one of the instigators of the creation of a UB Chemistry Institute, dedicated to research and graduate studies, which happened in 1959. Later, Professor Aragão became the dean of the university and minister of Education and Culture of Brazil.
In 1960, Eloisa Mano obtained her PhD degree from UB with a dissertation in organic chemistry. In 1962, she was admitted into the Chemistry Institute of the UB after a highly competitive selection process, and obtained the chair of organic chemistry. That same year, the Chemistry Institute became one of the first institutions in the country to offer graduate courses and began accepting applications for Masters studies in organic chemistry and biochemistry.
In 1964, Eloisa left Brazil for her second training in polymer science, this time at the University of Birmingham (England), with Professor J.C. Bevington. The following year, Eloisa came back to Brazil and to the university, whose name had changed in 1965 to UFRJ, as it is currently. In 1968, Prof. Eloisa created the first research group in polymers in Brazil, initially composed of 9 master students advised by her, who worked on the UFRJ campus at Praia Vermelha. The Polymer Group gained a good reputation constantly attracting new members, but the physical infrastructure did not grow along with the group.
In 1972, the group managed to obtain financing from government agencies for the construction of a new building at the UFRJ campus at Fundão Island. The group then was named “Macromolecular Center”. Eloisa personally took care of the building’s project, and continued taking great care of her workplace after the building was constructed, in 1978.
In 1976, the center was transformed into the Institute of Macromolecules (IMA), and professor Eloisa became its first director, a position she held until her mandatory retirement in 1994. That year, IMA was renamed to Professor Eloisa Mano Institute of Macromolecules. In 1995 Eloisa was named UFRJ professor emeritus.
Along with her work at IMA, professor Eloisa engaged in international activities that contributed to internationalizing the IMA, generating opportunities abroad for students of the institute. Besides being part of the editorial board of several national and international journals in the field of polymers, Eloisa was a visiting researcher/ professor at universities and research institutes from the Netherlands, Norway and Spain (1972), Germany (1976), Mexico and the United States (1977), Argentina (1978), Japan (1979), Chile (1983), France (1989), among others.
In over half a century dedicated to research, Eloisa Mano advised about 50 masters and doctorate theses, and published 17 books, 4 book chapters and over 200 papers in national and international scientific journals. In these publications, she collaborated with about 250 co-authors.
Her performance was recognized through awards and distinctions by many different entities such as the American Chemical Society (ACS), Society of Plastics Engineers (SPE), Society of Polymer Science, Brazilian Chemical Society (SBQ), Brazilian Association of Chemistry (ABQ), Brazilian Association of Polymers (ABPol), Regional Chemistry Council, Rio de Janeiro Government, Presidency of Brazil and industry federations of Rio de Janeiro.
Photo of Prof. Nader Engheta superimposed with some of the images related to his research. Credit: University of Pennsylvania photographer Felice Macera.
Materials created by applying the state-of-the-art in materials science and engineering and nanotechnology can make light and other electromagnetic waves behave in an extraordinary way, becoming very useful for applications in several fields.
To talk about this issue in the XIV SBPMat Meeting, Professor Nader Engheta (University of Pennsylvania, USA) will be in Rio de Janeiro in the end of September. Engheta is a recognized world leader in research on metamaterials – man-made materials created through micro or nanoengineering, and capable of interacting with electromagnetic waves in ways not found in nature. Metamaterials can sculpt the waves in order to achieve unconventional light-matter interaction.
In Rio de Janeiro, Engheta will talk about extreme scenarios generated from metamaterials: light traveling at full speed through artificial structures, one-atom-thick optical devices, metamaterials that perform mathematical operations, miniaturized circuits – optical rather than electronic – composed by metamaterials, and structures with effective refractive index near zero.
In his childhood in Tehran (capital of Iran), Nader Engheta developed a special curiosity to understand phenomena related to waves. This curiosity propelled him to attend and get a BS degree in Electrical Engineering at the University of Tehran. In 1978, he came to the United States to pursue his post-graduate (master’s and PhD degrees), also in Electric Engineering, carried in the prestigious Caltech (California Institute of Technology), in the United States. In 1982, he got his PhD diploma from Caltech, with a dissertation in the field of electromagnetism. After a post-doctorate at the same institution, Engheta worked as a scientist in the industry for four years, working again with electromagnetism. Then he joined the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia in 1987, and was swiftly promoted through the professorial ranks, and now he is the H. Nedwill Ramsey Professor of Electrical and Systems Engineering, with affiliations in the departments of Electrical and Systems Engineering, Physics and Astronomy, Bioengineering and Materials Science and Engineering.
Owner of an H number of 69 according to Google Scholar, Engheta has more than 21400 citations. Besides being author of 28 book chapters and numerous journal articles and conference presentations, Engheta is coeditor of the book “Metamaterials: Engineering and Physics Explorations”, released in 2006 by Wiley-IEEE publisher. In 2012, he chaired the Gordon Research Conference on Plasmonics.
His contributions to science and engineering have received important recognitions and distinctions from several entities, as the international society of optics and photonics, SPIE (“2015 SPIE Gold Medal”), the international union of radio science, URSI (“2014 Balthasar van der Pol Gold Medal”) and the international professional association of electric and electronic engineers, IEEE (“2015 IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society Distinguished Achievement Award”, “2013 Benjamin Franklin Key Award”, “2012 IEEE Electromagnetics Award”, “IEEE Third Millennium Medal”), among many other entities. He is also Fellow of six international scientific and technical organizations, namely, Materials Research Society (MRS), American Physical Society (APS), Optical Society of America (OSA), American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), SPIE, and IEEE. Engheta also received several teaching awards. In 2006 the Scientific American Magazine selected him as one of the 50 Leaders in Science and Technology for his development of metamaterial-inspired optical nanocircuitry.
Here follows an interview with Professor Nader Engheta.
SBPMat newsletter: – In your opinion, what are your most significant contributions on issues related to the topic of your plenary lecture? Explain them very briefly and if possible, share references of resulting papers or books, or comment if these studies have produced patents, products, spin-off companies etc.
Nader Engheta: – I am very interested in light-matter interaction, and in my group we explore different methods in manipulating and tailoring interaction of waves with material structures, both in the optical as well as microwave domains. I am very excited about all the research topics my group and I have been working on. Some of these topics include (1) The optical metatronic nanocircuitry, in which we brought the notion of “lumped” circuit elements from electronics into the field of nanophotonics, developing a new paradigm in which material nanostructures may function as optical circuit elements. In other words, “materials become circuits” working with optical signals. In this way, nanophotonics can be modularized, in an analogous way as in electronics. This allows one to perform optical signal processing at the nanoscale, (2) Metamaterials that can do math: following our work on optical metatronics, we are exploring how properly designed materials (e.g., layered materials) can interact with light in such a way that one can do mathematical operations with light. In other words, we are exploring the following questions: Can materials be specially designed to perform analog processing with light at the nanoscale? As light propagates through such properly designed material structures, would the profiles of the output signals resemble the results of certain mathematical operations (such as differentiation or integration) on the profiles on the input signals? In other words, can we design materials for specific mathematical operations in order to do “photonic calculus” at the nanoscale? (3) The extreme scenarios in light-matter interaction: this may include extreme dimensionality, like graphene photonics as the one-atom-thick platform for light manipulation, extreme metamaterials in which material parameters such as relative permittivity and relative permeability attain near-zero values. This category of materials, which we have named epsilon-near-zero (ENZ), mu-near-zero (MNZ) and epsilon-and-mu-near-zero (EMNZ) materials, exhibit very interesting features in their response to electromagnetic wave interaction.
References:
N. Engheta, “Circuits with Light at Nanoscales: Optical Nanocircuits Inspired by Metamaterials”, Science, 317, 1698-1702 (2007).
N. Engheta, A. Salandrino, A. Alu, “Circuit Elements at Optical Frequencies: Nano-Inductor, Nano-Capacitor, and Nano-Resistor,” Physical Review Letters, 95, 095504 (2005).
N. Engheta, “Taming Light at the Nanoscale,” Physics World , 23(9), 31-34 (2010).
A. Vakil and N. Engheta, “Transformation Optics Using Graphene,” Science, 332, 1291-1294 (2011).
A.Silva, F. Monticone, G. Castaldi, V. Galdi, A. Alu, and N. Engheta, “”Performing Mathematical Operations with Metamaterials,” Science, 343, 160-163 (2014).
M. G. Silveirinha and N. Engheta, “Tunneling of Electromagnetic Energy through Sub-Wavelength Channels and Bends Using Epsilon-Near-Zero (ENZ) Materials,” Physical Review Letters, 97, 157403 (2006).
N. Engheta, “Pursuing Near-Zero Response”, Science, 340, 286-287 (2013).
A.M. Mahmoud and N. Engheta, “Wave-Matter Interaction in Epsilon-and-Mu-Near-Zero Structures”, Nature Communications, 5:5638, December 5, 2014.
SBPMat newsletter: – Help us visualize the metamaterials developed by your group. Please choose one of your favorite photonic materials and tell us, very briefly, its composition, its main properties and its possible applications.
Nader Engheta: – One of the structures developed by my group is the optical metatronic nanocircuits for mid-IR regime (from 8 to 14 microns), in which we properly tailored and constructed nanorods of Si3N4 with specific widths and thicknesses, separated by a specific gap. These arrays of Si3N4 nanorods function as collections of optical nanoinductors, optical nanocapacitors and optical nanoresistors in mid IR. We demonstrated that such structures behave as nanoscale optical circuits, with functionality analogous to electronic filters, but here these material structures operate in the mid IR regimes. We have shown how these structure operate as optical filters in the mid IR, offering exciting applications for future integrated optical devices and components.
Reference:
Y. Sun, B. Edwards, A. Alu, and N. Engheta, “Experimental Realization of Optical Lumped Nanocircuit Elements at Infrared Wavelengths,” Nature Materials, 11, 208-212 (2012)
Later, in collaboration with my colleague Professor Cherie Kagan and her group at UPenn, we extended this work into the near IR regime (from 1 to 3 microns). In this case, we used the indium tin oxide (ITO) as the material of choice, with proper design and patterning of ITO nanorods. We also demonstrated that such ITO-based optical metatronic circuits function as an interesting platform for optical circuitry and filtering. This can have exciting possibilities in the silicon photonics.
Reference:
H. Caglayan, S.-H. Hong, B. Edwards, C. Kagan, and N. Engheta, “Near-IR Metatronic Nanocircuits by Design,” Physical Review Letters, 111, 073904 (2013).
SBPMat newsletter: – If you want, leave a message or invitation to your plenary lecture to the readers that will attend the XIV SBPMat Meeting.
Nader Engheta: – One of the exciting features of doing science is the joy of search for unknowns and the thrill of discovery. I always believe that we should follow our curiosity and our passion for discovery. Also, in science and technology it is important to maintain the balance between the complexity and the simplicity in search for solutions to scientific inquiry.
The São Paulo Advanced School on Glasses and Glass-ceramics, organized by the Center for Research, Technology and Education for Vitreous Materials (CeRTEV) of the Federal University of São Carlos (UFSCar) was held during August 1-9, 2015, in São Carlos, SP, Brazil. It counted on generous financial support from the São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP), the Department of Materials Engineering (DEMa-UFSCar), the Institute of Physics (IFSC)-USP, Brazil, and Owens-Illinois, USA.
The School was widely advertised during 2 months at CeRTEV´s email list of glass researchers, at Klaus Bange´s email list, and on key web sites related to glass research: American Ceramic Society, Society of Glass Technology, International Comission on Glass, Linkedin (glass research and technology groups), Brazilian Ceramic Society, Brazilian Physical Society, FAPESP, SBPMat (Brazil-MRS), as well as in some journals: Nature, ACerS Ceramic Bulletin, and Glass International.
The participants were selected among hundreds of applicants from around the globe. The selection criteria included a thorough analysis of their CVs, recommendation letters, and the scientific standing of their current research group. The large number of applications and the outstanding quality of many of them made this process quite difficult. In the end, approximately 100 highly qualified students from 19 countries were accepted. Among the international participants were 12 from the US, 8 from France, 7 from Germany, 6 from India, 3 from Italy, 3 from Colombia, 3 from Russia, 3 from China, 2 from Canada, 2 from Argentina, 2 from Turkey, 2 from the Czech Republic, and one each from Spain, Finland, Korea, Japan, UK, Portugal and Tunisia, plus about 40 students from Brazil. Twenty extra guest students and professors were allowed to attend the classes. The organizers covered the travel, meals and accommodation expenses of most of the selected PhD students and instructors.
The school program covered several key, state-of-the-art, topics on glass and glass-ceramics, ranging from structural characterization to relaxation, thermodynamics, crystallization, and properties. The program comprised 11 lectures of 2 hours each, and 3 tutorials about the powerful SciGlass database/software – with a free user license for all the attendees during the School days.
The first day started with an overview of the school objectives and the overall plan (delivered by Prof. Edgar D. Zanotto). The second day started with a “fire” session, where the students had a 1 minute to “sell” the highlights of their PhD research work and poster. In the next day, the school was opened with Professor Hellmut Eckert´s lecture on “Glass structure by NMR techniques”, followed by a lecture by Prof. P.S. Pizzani entitled “Glass structure by Raman spectroscopy”. In the afternoon, the students were assembled into groups of five and a challenge was proposed: to develop – under the guidance of an assigned tutor – an original proposal for a postdoctoral research project on a topic related to glass or glass-ceramics, to be presented at the end of the school, as a requirement for their final “diploma”. This day ended with a practical tutorial of SciGlass, coordinated by Dr. Alex Priven. On the fourth day, the school started with Professor Prabhat Gupta´s lecture on “Structural and stress relaxation in glasses”, followed by Prof. J.P. Rino´s lecture on “Dynamic processes in glass by MD simulation”. After lunch, Prof. Zanotto presented the lecture “Nucleation, growth and crystallization of glasses”, which was followed by another SciGlass tutorial session. The fifth day started with a lecture on “Optical properties of vitreous materials” delivered by Prof. Ballato followed by Prof. A. S. S. de Camargo´s lecture “Spectroscopic techniques applied to glasses and glass-ceramics”. In the afternoon the students had a guided visit to several laboratories of the Physics and Materials Engineering Departments of UFSCar. Lectures on “Mechanical properties of glasses” (Prof. V. Sglavo, Italy) and “Mechanical properties of glass-ceramics” (Prof. F. Serbena, Brazil) were presented on the sixth day of the school. After lunch, the students attended the final tutorial class on SciGlass and presented the main results of their PhD work in a 2-hour poster session. On Friday, the 7th day, Prof. A. Ghosh delivered his lecture on “Electrical properties of vitreous materials”. After this lecture, the students were invited to visit the laboratories of the Physics Institute of the University of São Paulo (USP). The afternoon was dedicated to the final discussions about the postdoctoral projects. The 8th day started with the presentations of Prof. Peitl, Marina Trevelin, Clever Chinaglia (all from CeRTEV (Brazil) and Murilo Crovace on “Bioactive glasses and glass-ceramics”. After this presentation, Prof. Osvaldo N. Oliveira Junior gave an overview of FAPESP`s funding opportunities for young researchers’ projects. Profs. Zanotto´s and Eckert´s talks on research opportunities at CeRTEV finished the morning talks. The remainder of the day was dedicated to working on the students´ research proposals, which were then defended during the final day of the conference. All the 18 presentations were of very high quality and very interesting research ideas were proposed. Many professors and attendees commented that they will likely build on some of these ideas in their own future research! The school ended with Prof. Zanotto´s and Eckert´s farewell speeches and acknowledgements. The lectures and other information can be downloaded from http://www.certev.ufscar.br/g-cc-brasil.
The vast majority of received feedback indicates that the school was a great success and should be repeated. This was likely one of the largest short courses focusing on glass education worldwide. We are confident that the attendees have benefitted greatly from the information and perspectives presented at this school and that they will return home to their on-going research projects with inspiration and new ideas. We hope to remain in touch with these future leaders in academic and industrial glass research, to develop collaborations and joint research projects with them and their advisors in the future.
M. R. B. Andreeta, A. C. M. Rodrigues, E. D. Zanotto and H. Eckert
CeRTEV (www.certev.ufscar.br), São Carlos, SP, Brazil
Location: Brazilian Synchrotron Light Laboratory (LNLS) – Campinas City, São Paulo state – Brazil.
Post details (i.e. permanent): Permanent staff member position.
Salary: to be negotiated depending on applicant’s experience.
Application requirements: 1. Solid experience on synchrotron science using micro and nano-probe x-ray scanning techniques. 2. Ph.D. degree or equivalent in Physics, Biology, Chemistry or a related discipline, with emphasis on the use of micro and nano-probe x-ray scanning techniques. 3. Experience with beamline design and commissioning. 4. Language: Advanced level of English. Portuguese as a plus.
Brief job description: The selected applicants will have to carry out their own research projects with x-ray diffraction and spectroscopy, as well as being involved in the project, construction and future operation of the nanoprobe beamline on Sirius (CARNAÚBA) on the operation of the x-ray diffraction beamlines at the current 2nd generation Light Source. For more information on the current LNLS beamlines, please visit www.lnls.br.
Interested, please send CV, Motivation and Recommendation Letter to elisa.turczyn@lnls.br. In the subject line, put “47834”, otherwise the CV will not be considered.
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Location: Brazilian Synchrotron Light Laboratory at CNPEM in Campinas/ São Paulo, Brazil.
Responsibilities: The extreme condition research group of LNLS has an immediate open Scientist position for an outstanding experimentalist in high-pressure/temperature and materials research. The successful candidate should be heavily involved in the design and implementation of the EMA beamline at the Sirius Synchrotron (under construction). This beamline is intended for spectroscopy (XAS/XMCD/XES) and scattering (XRD/XRMS/XRS) experiments under extreme pressures by taking advantage of submicron beamsize (down to 0.5×0.5 µm2) with high photon flux (up to 10^14 ph/s). In addition, the scientist must develop his/her own research activities and supervise students and post-docs. He/she also must be involved in high pressure/temperature experiments at our current 2nd generation synchrotron in order to prepare the instrumentation and the Latin American community to take advantage of state-of-the-art instrumentation when Sirius is ready.
Requirements: Ph.D. degree in physics, chemistry, materials science, earth science, biophysics, engineering, or a related field. Post-doc experience in the field is desirable but not obligatory. The successful candidate should meet some of the following qualifications (although quick learning scientist with expertise in other areas could also be considered): High pressure and temperature experiments in diamond anvil cells; X-ray diffraction and/or spectroscopy under high pressure/temperature; Visible/IR laser optics instrumentation; Experiments involving high magnetic fields; Commissioning/operation/use of a synchrotron hard x-ray beamline. Fluent English.
Interested, please send CV, Motivation and Recommendation Letter to elisa.turczyn@lnls.br. In the subject line, put “62220”.
Brazilian Materials Research Society (SBPMat) newsletter
News update from Brazil for the Materials community
English edition. Year 2, issue 7.
SBPMat news: XIV Meeting – Rio de Janeiro, Sept 27 to Oct 1, 2015
About 1,000 people are already registered in the XIV SBPMat Meeting.
Registrations: The deadline for early registration was extended up to August 31. Check the new special fees for graduation and postgraduation students and register. Here.
Program: See here the preliminary program at a glance and here the full program.
Meeting papers publication: authors of works presented in the meeting will have the possibility to submit papers to peer review for publication in IOP Materials journals. The papers of the XIV SBPMat Meeting accepted for publication in any of the 5 IOP journals will be gathered in an online collection dedicated to the event.The submissions are open up to October 15. Know more.
Bernhard Gross award: Up to August 21, authors who are students can submit extended abstracts to compete for the award for best works (one oral and one poster) of each simposium. More info.
IUMRS Award: This year, the IUMRS (International Union of Materials Research Societies) will grant an award to the 3 best posters among the set of the works awarded with Bernhard Gross Award.
Horiba Award: It will be granted to the best oral presentation and best poster of all the event.
E-MRS Award: It will be granted to the best oral presentation and to the 2 best posters of symposium C. Learn more.
Hosting: A list of hotels is available, with special conditions for participants of the XIV SBPMat Meeting. Here.
Sponsors and exhibitors: 28 companies have already booked their place in the XIV SBPMat Meeting. Contact for exhibitors and other sponsors: rose@metallum.com.br.
XIV SBPMat Meeting: 2,325 works accepted for presentation
Among the 2,444 abstracts submitted to the 27 symposia and 2 workshops of the XIV SBPMat Meeting, 2325 were accepted for presentation. It is the highest number in the history of the meetings of the society. Some symposia have more than 250 accepted works. Know more.
XIV SBPMat Meeting: interviews with plenary speakers
Organic electronics applied to the study of the brain and the diagnosis and treatment of neurological deseases will be addressed in one of the plenary lectures of the SBPMat meeting, in charge of professor George Malliaras, director of the department of Bioelectronics of the École Nationale Supérieure des Mines de Saint-Étienne (France). Examples of these applications are devices based on organic materials used to record and stimulate the cerebral activity. In an interview to our newsletter, Malliaras spoke about the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration to generate research with social impact in his research field. The scientist also mentioned some of his main contributions in organic electronics and bioelectronics.See the interview.
Featured paper
A team of scientists from UniVap (Brazil) coordinated a research that produced a composite biomaterial, promising to be used in the health area, in bone tissue regeneration. The material adds the mechanical properties of carbon nanotubes to the biological properties of the hydroxyapatite. By observing the behavior of the composite in simulated body fluid, the scientists could advance in the understanding of how the biomineralization (a stage of bone tissue generation) occurs. The work, that involved the collaboration of researchers from INPE (Brazil) and Israel and United Kingdom institutions, was recently published in Nanoscale. See our story about the paper.
SBPMat´s community people: interview with Marcelo Knobel
We interviewed Marcelo Knobel, professor of Unicamp and new director of the Brazilian Nanotechnology National Laboratory (LNNano). This physicist have been doing research, since the time of his graduation course, on magnetic properties of materials – field in which he participated in pioneering studies on giant magnetoresistance and magnetoimpedance in certain materials. In addition to being the author of about 300 papers with more than 6,300 citations, he has an important performance in science dissemination, with achievements such as the exhibition NanoAventura, a collection of books, articles in the media etc. In the interview, Marcelo Knobel talks about the importance of science dissemination and about his career as a materials scientist. He also leaves a message for readers beginning their careers, suggesting passion as a guide, accompanied by strong technical background, personal skills and general knowledge. See the interview.
Reading tips
Scientific journalism stories based on highlighted papers
Conductor fibers, made of rubber and carbon nanotubes, stretch 1,000% and can be used in electronics, sensors and muscles (based on paper from Science). Here.
Using ultrashort pulse laser, Brazilian scientists create diamond-like phase from polycrystalline graphite (based on paper from Scientific Reports). Here.
Scientists manage to obtain an ideal material to produce biocompatible and resistant hydrogel in 3D printers (based on paper from Advanced Materials). Here.
News from Brazilian National Institutes of Science and Technology (INCTs) and Research, Innovation and Dissemination Centers (CEPIDs)
NAMITEC (INCT) researchers publish papers on piezoelectric graphene and graphene under very high temperature in journals of Nature´s group. Here.
Book issued by CDMF (CEPID) brings together more than 200 SEM images chosen and colored with an aesthetic look. Here.
Events
Talk “Impactos das novas Tecnologias – Nanopartículas – Riscos Emergentes – O caso da Nanotecnologia”. Rio de Janeiro, RJ (Brazil). August, 13, 2015. Folder.
Primeira Conferência de Materiais Celulares (MATCEL 2015). Aveiro (Portugal). September, 7 to 8, 2015. Site.
XXII Reunião da Associação Brasileira de Cristalografia (ABCr) and I Reunião da Latin America Crystallographic Association (LACA). São Paulo e Campinas, SP (Brazil). September, 9 to 11, 2015. Site.
Workshop em Ciências dos Materiais. São Carlos, SP (Brazil). September, 21 to 25, 2015. Site.
XIV SBPMat Meeting. Rio de Janeiro, RJ (Brazil). September 27 to October 1, 2015. Site.
8th International Summit on Organic and Hybrid Solar Cells Stability (ISOS-8). Rio de Janeiro, RJ (Brazil). September 29 to October 1, 2015. Site.
13th International Conference on Plasma Based Ion Implantation & Deposition (PBII&D 2015). Buenos Aires (Argentina). October, 5 to 9, 2015. Site.
Nanomercosur 2015. Buenos Aires (Argentina). October, 6 to 8, 2015. Site.
4th EPNOE International Polysaccharide Conference. Warsaw (Poland). October, 18 to 22, 2015. Site.
10th Ibero-American Workshop on Complex Fluids 2015. Florianópolis, SC (Brazil). October, 25 to 29, 2015. Site.
14th International Union of Materials Research Societies – International Conference on Advanced Materials (IUMRS-ICAM 2015). Jeju (Korea). October, 25 to 29, 2015. Site.
III Método Rietveld de Refinamento de Estrutura. Belém, PA (Brazil). October, 26 to 30, 2015. Site.
16th International Feofilov Symposium on spectroscopy of crystals doped with rare earth and transition metal ions. St Petersburg (Russia). November, 9 to 13, 2015. Site.
6th Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM) Summer School. Campinas, SP (Brazil). January, 11 to 29, 2016. Site.
43rd International Conference on Metallurgical Coatings and Thin Films (ICMCTF). San Diego (EUA). April, 25 to 29, 2016. Site.
To suggest news, opportunities, events, papers, interviewees or reading recommendations items for inclusion in our newsletter, write to comunicacao@sbpmat.org.br.
2,325 works are accepted for oral presentation or poster in the XIV SBPMat Meeting (Rio De Janeiro, September 27th to October 1st). The number is the greatest in the history of the meetings of the society.The amount of submitted works was 2,444.
This year the meeting has 26 thematic symposia, 2 workshops (on nanomanufacturing and organic electronics in the industry) and 1 symposium organized by students who belong to the SBPMat university chapters (UCs).The symposia with more accepted works (more than 200 accepted abstracts) are symposium C, on characterization and applications of nanomateriais, with 272 works, and symposium S, on materials for sustainable development, with 253 works.
Among the accepted works, those submitted by authors who are undergraduate or graduate students will be able to compete for the Bernhard Gross Award, who will distinguish the best works from each symposium (1 oral and 1 poster).To participate of the award, the authors have to submit an extended abstract, according to the instructions and the model that appears in the website of the event, until August 21.
About the event
The SBPMat annual meeting is a traditional, international forum, dedicated to recent advances and perspectives on Materials Science and Technology. In the last editions, the event has gathered approximately 1,500 attendees, from the five regions of Brazil and dozens of others countries, for presenting and discussing scientific and technological studies in the field of Materials. The event also counts with plenary lectures, offered by internationally renowned researchers, and an exhibition of interest for the Materials community.
Marcelo Knobel. Credits: Antonio Scarpinetti – Ascom – Unicamp.
Scientific research, magnetic materials, scientific dissemination and higher education would be perhaps the biggest expressions in a cloud of tags to represent Professor Marcelo Knobel.
Born in Buenos Aires (Argentina) in 1968, Marcelo Knobel came to live in Brazil, more specifically in Campinas (SP), by the age of 8 years-old, following his parents, the psychologist Clara Freud de Knobel and the psychiatrist Maurício Knobel. The family was escaping from the coup d’etat that had just established in Argentina a military dictatorship that fired Maurício from the University of Buenos Aires (UBA). In Brazil, which was also governed by a military dictatorship, Maurício had been contracted for the State University of Campinas (Unicamp).
Ten years after the arrival in Campinas, Marcelo Knobel joined Unicamp to a graduation in Physics. In parallel to the studies, he started to do research on magnetic properties of materials. After he obtained the bachelor´s degree, Knobel remained in Unicamp for the doctorate in the same area, receiving the diploma of doctor in Physics when he defended his dissertation on magnetism and structure of nanocrystalline materials in 1992. After that, he went to Europe, where he conducted two postdoctoral internships; one at Istituto Elettrotecnico Nazionale Galileo Ferraris, Italy, and the other at the Instituto de Magnetismo Aplicado, Spain.
Returning to Brazil and to Unicamp, in 1995, Marcelo Knobel started his career of professor and researcher of the Institute of Physics Gleb Wataghin (IFGW). From 1999 to 2009 he was the coordinator of the Laboratory of Materials and Low Temperatures, where he acts as researcher until the present moment, always investigating magnetism and magnetic materials. Together with his collaborators of the laboratory, Knobel have carried pioneering works in the study of the giant magnetoresistance and magnetoimpedance in certain materials – two different concepts that are related to the opposition that a material offers to the passage of the electricity in consequence of the application of an external magnetic field. In 2008, Knobel became Full Professor of the Department of Condensed Matter Physics at IFGW.
In the area of scientific dissemination, Marcelo Knobel started in the year 2000 to perform education and research activities at the Laboratory of Advanced Studies in Journalism (LABJOR) of Unicamp. Moreover, Knobel was one of the creators of NanoAventura, an interactive and itinerary exposition on nanotechnology that started in 2005 and was visited by more than 50 thousand people, mainly children, until now. NanoAventura received honorable mentions at Scientific Cine and Video Festival of Mercosur (2006) and at Mercosur Science and Technology Award (2015), as well as an award in 2009, from the Latin American and Caribbean Network for the Popularization of Science and Technology (RedPOP). From 2006 to 2008, Knobel was the first director of the Exploratory Museum of Science, linked to Unicamp. In 2008, he became editor in chief of the magazine Ciência & Cultura of the Brazilian Society for the Progress of Science (SBPC), position that he occupies until now. In the publishing field, Knobel coordinates a collection of science dissemination books of the Unicamp Publisher, called Meio de Cultura, released in 2008.
In 2007 Marcelo Knobel received the Young Scientist Prize from the TWAS-ROLAC (office of Latin America and the Caribbean of the The World Academy of Sciences for the advancement of science in developing countries), an awars for young scientists of the region. In the same year, he was selected, together with about 50 people of different professional areas and several countries of the world, to participate of the program Eisenhower Fellowships, which aims to strengthen the leadership potential of its fellows. The group travelled for the United States during 7 weeks complying with a schedule of meetings and seminars. In 2009, he was chosen as a fellow of John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, receiving resources for research.
From 2009 to 2013, he was Vice-President for Undergraduate Programs of Unicamp. In this position, he was responsible for the implantation of the Interdisciplinary Program of Higher Education (ProFIS). ProFIS is a higher education course of 4 semesters that provides a general, multidisciplinary and critical formation, and makes possible to its alumni (former students of public schools chosen by their good grades in the Brazilian National Exam of the Secondary School (ENEM) that they enter graduation courses at Unicamp without passing for Brazilian admission university exam). The program was distinguished in 2013 with the Prize Péter Murányi – Education, destined to actions that increase well-being of populations of the south hemisphere.
In 2010, with 42 years-old, Knobel was honored with the title of Commendatore of the Order of the Scientific Merit by the Brazilian Presidency of the Republic.
Holder of a productivity scholarship 1A (the highest) at CNPq, Marcelo Knobel has published about 300 scientific articles in peer-review international journals and 15 chapters of books on magnetic materials and properties, popularization of science, public perception of science and higher education. Also he is the author of articles about science and education published in diverse medias. He has 6.370 citations, according to Google Scholar.
Marcelo Knobel had just assumed, in August 3rd, the position of director of the Brazilian National Laboratory of Nanotechnology (LNNano), of the National Center of Research in Energy and Materiais (CNPEM).
Here follows a brief interview with the scientist.
SBPMat newsletter: – Tell us what made you become a researcher and work in the field of Materials.
Marcelo Knobel: – I chose the area of Physics because of the curiosity, without knowing exactly what this meant. But already in the first semester I realized that it was what I wanted for my life, to try to understand the nature. Early in the beginning of the graduation, I had a laboratory class with professor Reiko Sato, who later invited me to do scientific initiation in her laboratory. She worked with magnetic properties of amorphous metals, and that was the subject of my research. Later, I went to the doctorate also with her, already working with nanocrystals, and later I followed the postdoctoral in the same area.
SBPMat newsletter: – Which are, in your own evaluation, your main contributions to the field of Materials?
Marcelo Knobel: – I am acting in nanoscopic magnetic systems, mainly investigating dipole interactions in magnetic nanosystems, using several experimental techniques, theoretical models and computational simulations. These systems, beyond the interest in basic research, have many possible applications, mainly in systems of magnetic record and nanomedicine. The research group that I helped to consolidate develops new nanocrystalline materials and carries studies through the development of new magnetic, structural and transport techniques. In the scope of these researches, we were pioneer in the study of giant magnetoresistance in granular systems and in the research of giant magnetoimpedance in amorphous and nanocrystalline wires and ribbons. But I have also been dedicating myself to scientific dissemination, being one of the responsible for the creation of the Exploratory Museum of Sciences of Unicamp. I was the coordinator of NanoAventura project, which is an interactive and itinerary exhibit on nanoscience and nanotechnology for children and adolescents. I still work in research in the area of public perception of science, I coordinate the series “Meio de Cultura” of Unicamp Publisher and I act as an editor in chief of the magazine Ciência & Cultura, of SBPC. Recently, I was Vice-President for Undergraduate Programs of Unicamp, where I highlight the implantation of the Interdisciplinary Program of Higher Education (ProFIS). Currently, I am initiating a new challenge, as Director of the National Laboratory of Nanotechnology (LNNano).
SBPMat newsletter: – You have an especially strong performance in dissemination of science and scientific culture. Comment with our readers, students and researchers, which is, for you, the importance to carry through this type of activity.
Marcelo Knobel: – I became a scientist after reading books and magazines of dissemination and visiting museums of sciences. I believe that we must stimulate the new generations to think critically, to have curiosity, to search to unmask the mysteries that surround them. For Brazil it is basic to stimulate young talents for science. Without them we will not have a future… Moreover, it is our obligation to give account to the society, which is the financer of the scientific research in public universities and research institutes. It is important to show the science that is done in our country, and the importance to follow investing, more and more, in science and technology.
SBPMat newsletter: – If you want, you can leave a message for the readers that are initiating their scientific careers.
Marcelo Knobel: – I do not have doubts that it is the passion that must guide the careers of everybody, and mainly of the scientists. But beyond the passion, a solid formation is necessary, not only in the specific content, but also in personal abilities, as work in team, communication (including Portuguese and English, scientific writing) and general knowledge. The scientific activity demands effort and devotion, but we are rewarded, I guess, with a life full of new challenges and opportunities.
