B-MRS & ICEM: update on the Corona virus.

logo2021b_400pxOwing to the uncertainties related to the COVID-19, and in order to reduce the risk of hampering the health of our community, the Organizing Committee, the Executive Board of the B-MRS and the IUMRS decided to postpone the 2020 B-MRS and the IUMRS/ICEM meetings.

The conferences are now scheduled to happen from August 29th until September 2nd, 2021, in the city of Iguassu Falls, at the Rafain Convention Center.

All participants will be asked to resubmit their abstracts following a new schedule to be released.

International Union of Materials Research Society (IUMRS) endorses UNESCO´s International Year of the Periodic Table.

[IUMRS News Release]

The Periodic Table of Chemical Elements Underlies All of Our Modern Materials

Seminal work of Dmitri Mendeleev one hundred and fifty years ago revealed systematic interrelationships of all the chemical elements known and predicted at the time, and, remarkably, of those subsequently discovered.Those elements are the stuff of which everything and everyone we see is made. The phenomenal natural evolution of our world, including of life itself, assembles the necessary major and often crucial minor elemental ingredients required for Nature’s grand design. Mendeleev’s Periodic Table of the Chemical Elements and its legacy gave us the tools and understanding to invent and design well beyond what Nature has provided.

Whereas empirical uses of materials date to the Bronze and Iron Ages, our electronics, pharmaceuticals, and skyscrapers owe their existence to invention informed by knowledge of the properties of the elements and of the likely properties of myriad compounds and alloys that they form. Such research and invention continue apace in the laboratories of universities and companies with no end in sight. The community of materials researchers depends on, and fully participates in, this exciting progress. The International Union of Materials Research Societies (IUMRS) therefore enthusiastically endorses UNESCO’s declaration of 2019 as the “International Year of the Periodic Table of Chemical Elements (IYPT2019). See https://www.iypt2019.org.

According to IUMRS President Professor Y.F. HAN, “The thousands of researchers affiliated with our membership, who devote their careers to uncovering the next great innovation enabled by advanced materials, all rely on their early training which included Mendeleev’s Table and which emains invaluable in formulating the next new approach to solving problems and making new discoveries in the laboratory. It  is therefore entirely appropriate for IUMRS to recognise this sesquicentennial anniversary on their behalf.”


IUMRS Head Office: Room 2112, No. 62 Zizhuyuan Road, Haidian, Beijing, China.
For more information about this topic, contact Dr. Fenfen Liang at +86 10 6872 2032, fax to 86-10-6872-2033, or email to liangff_cmrs@163.com.
Alternative contact: IUMRS Chief Advocacy Officer at cao@iumrs.net

Awards for the best contributions presented at the XVII B-MRS Meeting: list of the winners.

Bernhard Gross Award for students

(Established by B-MRS in honor of the pioneer of Brazilian Materials Research, it distinguishes the best oral and poster contributions of all symposia)

  • Felipe Leon Nascimento Sousa (UFPE, Brazil). Ecofriendly aqueous electrosynthesis of AgInS2–ZnS quantum dots with high optical efficiency. Symposium
  • Lucas Fabrício Bahia Nogueira (USP Ribeirão Preto, Brazil). Bioactive biopolymeric membranes reinforced with hydroxyapatite for tissue engineering application.
  • João Saccoman (UNESP – Bauru, Brazil). Analysis of the optical emission lines from the plasma during the deposition of  TiO2 for sputtering.
  • Lukas Augusto de Lima Basilio (UFAM, Brazil). Hydrothermal synthesis of sodium titanate nanotubes for application in solid state electrolytes.
  • Filipe Rogerio de Souza Quirino (UFPE, Brazil). The temperature dependence of saturation magnetization for yttrium iron garnet doped with Zn, Ni and Co.

ACS Publications Prizes for students 

(Sponsored by the journals ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, ACS Applied Energy Materials, ACS Applied Nano Materials, ACS Applied Bio Materials, Nano Letters, ACS Nano, Chemistry of Materials, JACS and ACS Energy Letters).

ACS Publications Best Oral Presentation Prize

  • João Batista Maia Rocha Neto (UNICAMP , Brazil). Chitosan/hyaluronan coatings tailored for tumor cell adhesion: influence of the topography and surface chemistry.
  • Daniel Alves Heinze (UFABC, Brazil). Influence of Nanoparticles on the Electrical and Mechanical Properties of SEBS Block Copolymers.
  • Samarah Vargas Harb (UNESP, Brazil). Self-healing PMMA-CeO2 coatings for anticorrosive protection of carbon steel.

ACS Publications Best Poster Prize

  • Fabrício Benedito Destro (UFSCAR, Brazil). Number of grain in polycrystalline hematite modified with Sn: Its influence on electrical properties.
  • Michele Duarte Tonet (UFSC, Brazil). Gold nanoparticles into a discotic liquid crystalline matrix.
  • Jean Felipe Oliveira da Silva (UFPE, Brazil). Magnetic configurations and switching processes in cobalt ferromagnetic hollow nanospheres.

E-MRS Best Oral Presentation Award

  • Everton Bonturim (Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie, Brazil). Low-energy polarization switching in La-doped BiFeO3 thin films.

IUMRS Best Poster Award

Gold Prize

  • Nazir Monteiro dos Santos (INPE, Brazil). DLC film deposition as protective coating of titanium alloy tibe using PIII&D system.

Silver Prize

  • Aline Alves dos Reis Almeida (UFMG, Brazil). Preparation and Characterization of P3HT/TiO2 Nanocomposites.

Bronze Prize

  • Felipe Conceição dos Santos (Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie, Brazil). Phase transition on chemically exfoliated MoS2 nanosheets: electrocatalytic properties for energy application.

Challenge “Aerospace Materials and Manufacturing for the Next Century”

Winning solution: Aerospace Structures and Systems Inspired by Nature – lotus leaf.

Winning team members:

  • Ana Paula Wünsh Boitt (UFSC, Brazil)
  • Angélica Belchior Vital (UFRN, Brazil)
  • Lázaro Aleixo dos Santos (UFRGS, Brazil)
  • Priscila da Costa Gonçalves (UFSC, Brazil)
  • Tahir Jankal (PUC-Rio, Brazil)

 

 

Participation of B-MRS young members in international events on sustainable materials.

The B-MRS group at the headquarters of the Council of Europe. From the left, Gisele Amaral-Labat (B-MRS member), Eduardo Neiva (member), Professor Osvaldo Novais de Oliveira Jr (president of SBPMat), Kassio Zanoni (member) and Parinaz Akhlaghi (member).
The B-MRS group at the headquarters of the Council of Europe. From the left, Gisele Amaral-Labat (B-MRS member), Eduardo Neiva (member), Professor Osvaldo Novais de Oliveira Jr (president of SBPMat), Kassio Zanoni (member) and Parinaz Akhlaghi (member).

Four members of B-MRS were part of the select group of about 30 young researchers from several countries who participated in two events held in the city of Strasbourg, France, along with 60 other participants. The main subject of both events was material innovation for a sustainable society and a global circular economy (i.e., based on reduction, reuse, recovery and recycling of materials and/or energy). The events were organized by several research societies in materials research, the International Union of Materials Research Societies (IUMRS) and other entities, with the support of UNESCO.

Post-doctoral fellows Eduardo Guilherme Cividini Neiva (currently full-time professor at FURB, after completing a post-doc at UFPR), Gisele Amaral-Labat (USP), Kassio Papi Silva Zanoni (IFSC-USP) and Sedeyeh Parinaz Akhlaghi (UNICAMP) were the young B-MRS members who participated in the events. The four postdocs were selected from 20 candidates in the context of the B-MRS Young Researcher Award. They have earned the right to attend the events (which are not open to the public), as well as travel costs. The award was made in partnership with the European Materials Research Society (E-MRS).

The first of the events was the “Forum for the Next Generation of Researchers 2017,” held on 18 and 19 November of this year at the headquarters of the European Youth Center. The forum brought together different generations of researchers around science and technology for a sustainable world. The event included lectures by senior scientists, poster presentations of young researchers and discussions among all participants. In addition, all young scientists participated in the preparation of a report that was presented at the end of the event.

Then, on the 20th and 21st, the “6th World Materials Summit” was held at the headquarters of the Council of Europe. The subject of innovation in sustainable materials and the circular economy was discussed through lectures by scientists from various countries and round tables.

According to Kassio Zanoni, the discussions of the two events showed an academic, political, social and environmental view about themes related to sustainability, as well as the perspectives of Materials research in this context. According to the B-MRS participants, some of the topics addressed were the conversion, storage and distribution of energy (solar, for example); production of more efficient and less polluting batteries; capture and reuse of carbon dioxide; materials recycling; and many other topics.

The president of SBPMat, Osvaldo Novais de Oliveira Jr, professor at IFSC-USP, represented SBMat in the international committee of the summit and gave a lecture in the forum about nanomaterials and their applications.

Read our interview with the B-MRS young members who attended the events.

box parinaz ENB-MRS Newsletter:  Briefly tell us about the work you presented in the “Forum for the New Generation of Researchers 2017”.

Eduardo Neiva:  I presented a poster about my postdoctoral work, whose theme involved the application of graphene nanocomposites in the construction of energy storage devices.

Gisele Amaral-Labat: My panel discussion consisted of activities that are currently being developed in my postdoctoral fellowship. The work is based on the use of pulp and paper industry waste, crude black liquor, in the synthesis of porous carbon foams in the presence of nickel, for direct ethanol fuel cell applications. The synthesis form used generates a product with a greater amount of residues, besides the low cost when compared to the electrocatalysts used in the current market.

Kassio Zanoni: I presented a poster of the work I am developing in the postdocs, on ways and concepts for energy conversion and sustainability.

Parinaz Akhlaghi: I presented my postdoctoral work (referring to the years 2015-2017) at UNICAMP (Institute of Chemistry), still in progress, as well as part of the work developed during my doctorate (2010-2014) at the University of Waterloo (Dept. of Chemical Engineering) in the form of a poster titled “Preparation and Characterization of Novel Nanomaterials for Biomedical Applications.”

B-MRS Newsletter: How did your participation in these events contribute to your development?

Eduardo Neiva: Unlike other events, I had the opportunity to participate in discussions involving topics of global importance. My participation in this event will also result in future international and national partnerships, where in the event, I and the participant Gisele conceived projects to be developed in the near future.

Gisele Amaral-Labat: Undoubtedly, participating in these events was extremely important for my academic background, first due to the type of event, in which a common theme is discussed by two different communities, academic and business, enabling me to know different global views of the subject. Secondly, it created the possibility for collaboration with other research centers, including young and senior researchers, national and international. Furthermore, the event allowed getting to know the work of the other young Brazilian researchers, and a possible collaboration with Eduardo Guilherme Cividini Neiva is in progress. The objective is to synthesize sustainable carbon materials for application in the area of energy storage, taking advantage of the expertise of both of us.

Kassio Zanoni: The event provided the opportunity for meetings with several researchers, increasing our networks of collaborations. It was very interesting to hear the different views and this brought a great deal of professional growth. It really was very productive, perhaps the most productive meeting I’ve ever attended.

Parinaz Akhlaghi: I believe that my participation in these events was one of the most rewarding and most influential experiences in my career as a researcher and as a human being. I was affected in an extremely positive way by being in the presence of young researchers like myself, as well as experienced scientists, shaping my worldview (and my future), my ambitions and desires in the academic career. Being in the presence of scientists that I have admired for so long and being able to exchange ideas with them was very rewarding in several aspects. All the discussions were profound, passionate and motivating. It was certainly an experience shared by the other young scientists.

B-MRS Newsletter: What most attracted your attention in the events?

Eduardo Neiva: The direct and prolonged contact with renowned researchers.

Gisele Amaral-Labat: I was delighted with how receptive the senior researchers were with the young researchers. Moreover, the event showed a relevant multidisciplinarity of the professionals and the works presented.

Kassio Zanoni: The different views on the same theme, which vary widely between different countries.

Parinaz Akhlaghi: What at first could have been a barrier, soon proved to be extremely pleasurable. Despite the age difference between the main scientists (some older than 70) and the young researchers (some 25 years old), the exchange of information flowed naturally. On both sides there was passion when talking about science (as a whole), as well as new paths and alternatives for a more hopeful and better future.

Kassio Zanoni (foreground) and other young researchers during the 6th World Materials Summit.
Kassio Zanoni (foreground) and other young researchers during the 6th World Materials Summit.
Parinaz Akhlaghi presenting her work on nanomaterials for biomedical applications during the forum.
Parinaz Akhlaghi presenting her work on nanomaterials for biomedical applications during the forum.
Eduardo Neiva (left) and Gisele Amaral-Labat (right) receiving the participation certificate in the events.
Eduardo Neiva (left) and Gisele Amaral-Labat (right) receiving the participation certificate.

B-MRS at IUMRS General Assembly in Japan.

Participants of IUMRS General Assembly. Prof. Bianchi (B-MRS) is the sixth standing from the left.
Participants of IUMRS General Assembly. Prof. Bianchi (B-MRS) is the sixth standing from the left.

Professor Rodrigo Fernando Bianchi (Brazilian Federal University of Ouro Preto, UFOP), scientific director of B-MRS, represented the society at the General Assembly of IUMRS (International Union of Materials Research Societies), held on August 27, 2017 in Kyoto, Japan, during the IUMRS-ICAM 2017 (fifteenth edition of the International Conference on Advanced Materials).

B-MRS is one of fourteen materials research societies in the world that currently make up IUMRS. The other societies are from Africa, Australia, China, Singapore, Korea, Europe, India, Indonesia, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Thailand and Taiwan.

According to Bianchi, the meeting made clear the interest of several associations to collaborate with Brazil.

In addition to representing SBPMat at the meeting, Professor Bianchi presented, at the IUMRS-ICAM 2017, his research group’s work focused on developing printed radiation sensors. The event attracted about 1,900 participants from dozens of countries.What most attracted the attention of B-MRS scientific director were presentations on the application of materials science and characterization techniques in the conservation of cultural resources (paintings , monuments and etc.). “That is, the cultural valuation within the area of materials – very important for the conservation of artistic, historical and cultural heritage of a country, and which is present in Kyoto, cultural capital of Japan. Brazil could follow the same trend!” said Bianchi.

At the event, Professor Ado Jorio (UFMG), also a member of the Brazilian materials community, delivered a plenary lecture on inelastic light scattering in carbon nanostructures.

Participation of B-MRS (SBPMat) at events in China and integration with Asian societies.

iumrs-ica
Banner of one of the events.

SBPMat (B-MRS), represented by its president Osvaldo Novais de Oliveira Junior, attended two events held in China in October, organized by Asian materials research societies and also by the European society for materials research. The events were the 5th World Materials Summit on Advanced Materials for Sustainable Society Development and the IUMRS International Conference in Asia. The president of SBPMat was invited by the China Materials Research Society (C-MRS) and the International Union of Materials Research Societies (IUMRS). In addition to attending both events, Osvaldo Novais de Oliveira Junior was part of the international advisory committee at the first event, and Professor Roberto Mendonça Faria,  former SBPMat president and second vice president of IUMRS, participated in the international advisory committees of both events.

“The Materials research societies in Asia have made great efforts to integrate with each other and with societies from other parts of the world,” states Prof. Novais de Oliveira Junior, highlighting the work of MRS from China, Japan, South Korea and Singapore. “For several years there has been a close relationship between SBPMat and these societies, which will be represented at our next meeting in Gramado from September 10 to 14, 2017”, he added.

The summit, held in Rizhao, Shandong Province, from October 18 to 20, was organized by the materials research societies of China (C-MRS), Europe (E-MRS), Korea (MRS-K) and Japan (MRS-J), and also by the Rizhao Science and Technology Association. It is an annual event where scientists, politicians and entrepreneurs are invited by the organization. They come together to present and discuss the subject of advanced materials for the development of a sustainable society, focusing on specific themes in each edition. In 2016, the themes chosen were renewable energies, mainly for motor vehicles, construction materials focusing on sustainability and materials for oceanographic engineering.

According to Professor Novais de Oliveira Junior, the most relevant conclusions of the event regarded the need for international collaborative actions, highlighting the distinctive quality of Materials Science and Engineering to solve crucial problems facing humanity, thanks to the integrated, multifaceted approach and the synergy between experiment, theory and computational simulation this discipline is able to offer. Specifically on the themes of the fifth edition of the event, the president of SBPMat stressed the importance of developing more durable, higher capacity and safer batteries, and the need for sea and building materials research investigations. “As a matter of fact, data regarding maintenance costs of large civil works, such as bridges, viaducts and roads, were presented in the summit, which indicate a great demand for advanced materials, not only to reduce costs, but also to guarantee sustainability,” declared the president of SBPMat. He also mentioned the excellent presentations by European experts in regard to the forms of renewable energy sources that can be extracted from the sea. According to the professor, a document with the main conclusions of the event is being prepared by the participants.

The second event, October 20 to 24, was held in Qingdao also in Shandong province, about 150 km from Rizhao, organized by C-MRS and the Taiwan Materials Research Society (MRS-T). This even consisted of 4 plenary lectures and 27 symposiums on materials for energy and the environment, advanced structural and functional materials, biological materials, and simulation, modeling and characterization of materials.

SBPMat´s community people: interview with Roberto Mendonça Faria.

The interviewee of this edition of the newsletter of the Brazilian Materials Research Society Newsletter (SBPMat) is Professor Roberto Mendonça Faria, who has just handed over the SBPMat Presidency after four years in office (although he promises to remain active in the society).

Roberto Mendonça Faria was born in Adamantina, a small town on the west side of the State of São Paulo (Brazil), on May 1952. At the beginning of his secondary studies, already oriented towards “hard sciences” and stimulated by a great physics teacher, he started to look at science as a potential profession. In 1976, Faria concluded his bachelor’s degree in physics at the São Paulo University (USP).

In the same year, still passionate about physics, in which humanity was taking great steps towards knowledge, Faria began his academic career. He started teaching in undergraduate courses at USP and began his master´s course in physics at the same university. There, supervised by Professor Bernhard Gross, a pioneer in Materials research in Brazil, Faria learnt the pillars of scientific activity and developed a fascination for uncovering mysteries of materials (in this case, the conductivity induced via radiation in a polymer known as Teflon). Right after obtaining the master’s degree, in 1980, Faria began the doctorate course in physics at USP, once again having Professor Gross as supervisor. In 1984, Faria defended his dissertation about dielectric absorption and induced conductivity via radiation in the polymer PVDF.

In 1985, Faria started lecturing in postgraduate courses at USP. Between 1987 and 1989, he stayed in France on a post-doctorate internship at Université Montpellier 2. In 1990, he obtained the Associate Professor title at USP after defending a thesis about phase transitions in ferroelectric copolymers. In 1999, he became Full Professor of the São Carlos Institute of Physics (IFSC) at USP, where he occupied several management positions throughout the years, such as the head of the Department of Physics and Materials Science (1994-1996), the coordination of the postgraduate program in physics (1997-1998) and the IFSC general direction (2002-2006).

Roberto Faria also was the coordinator of two large scale projects at a national level. The first project was the “Multidisciplinary Millennium Institute of Polymeric Materials”, one of 17 projects selected within the program “Institutes of the Millennium” of the Brazilian Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation (MCT). This institute gathered around 140 researchers from 17 institutions from Brazil’s five regions, and existed between 2002 and 2008. The second project continued one of the research focuses of the first one – the study of electronic polymers and their applications. Starting in 2009, the Brazilian National Institute for Organic Electronics was approved and established in the context of the Brazilian National Institutes of Science and Technology (INCTs) from the MCT.

Going beyond the frontiers of his scientific area, Faria was the coordinator, between 2010 and 2014, of the São Carlos pole of the Institute of Advanced Studies (IEA) at USP, an organization intended for broad and interdisciplinary research and discussion of fundamental issues on science and culture. In addition, in the context of his interest in contributing with the economical development of his country through research, Faria coordinated the making of the book “Science, technology and innovation for a competitive Brazil”, published in 2012.

In the last few years, Faria has been having an active participation in international scientific entities in the Materials area. In 2014, he was one of the general coordinators of the “Spring Meeting of the European Material Research Society – 2014”, which took place in the French city of Lille.  In 2015, he was elected second vice-president of the International Union of Materials Research Societies (IUMRS).

Faria is a member of the Academy of Sciences of the State of São Paulo and the Brazilian Academy of Sciences and belongs to the editorial board of the journal “Materials Science – Poland”. In 40 years of scientific research on polymeric materials, particularly those with electronic activity and their applications in devices, Professor Faria has produced around 180 articles published in indexed journals, having about 2,000 references, and has supervised 47 master´ss and doctorate thesis.

An interview with the researcher follows below.

SBPMat Newsletter: – Tell us what made you become a scientist and work in the field of Materials.

Roberto Mendonça Faria: – Before High School, I imagined I was going to follow my studies in the “hard sciences” area (engineering, physics, chemistry, mathematics, etc.). But I didn’t have any intention to follow a scientific career, even less so to be a scientist. However, in the first year of High School I started to change my mind, stimulated by an excellent physics teacher, Roberto Stark. I graduated in Physics and soon after I was lucky to be supervised by two great masters: Professor Bernhard Gross and Professor Guilherme Fontes Leal Ferreira. As any newly-graduated person in physics at the time, I was passionate about the extraordinary experimental and theoretical advances of the 20th century physics.  However, my first research study was about an apparently modest theme: the interaction of ionizing radiation with thin films of insulating polymers. Under the supervision of Professor Gross, I definitely learnt how to approach a scientific issue and also how to handle the methodological strictness needed to discover the effects and the phenomena arising from the experiments performed. Those first years of research were crucially important to my career. I never again lost the fascination in discovering the properties and the enigmas of the condensed matter, and I’m happy because materials science and engineering is extremely important for the development of Brazil.

SBPMat Newsletter: – In your assessment, which are your main contributions to the field of Materials?

Roberto Mendonça Faria: – There are different ways to measure the contributions made to the advance of scientific and technological knowledge. The most objective and internationally followed view is the bibliometric, conduced by the Journal of Citation Reports (JCR) from Thomson Reuters. This metric has many merits, but it’s too much focused on numbers. Another fact influencing scientific assessments comes from the pragmatism of the present world. Today, it is required that scientific works aim at specific applications. In this context, researches involving more fundamental studies tend to lose the visibility they deserve. That is, many times scientific works of great value have little mentions. An analysis of my production from JCR may lead to the conclusion that my most relevant contributions are connected to applications, but I particularly believe that my greatest contributions are more related to fundamental works in the areas of phase transitions of ferroelectric polymers and electrical transportation mechanisms in electronic polymers.

One of the interesting areas I have been working on in the last few years is the organic solar cells. I believe that, with my research group, we gave a significant contribution to the understanding of phenomena involving the transportation of electrical carriers inside the cell. Since 2013 we published two works where we developed an analytical equation which rules the electrical current curve in function of the voltage of a solar cell when under lighting. This analytical equation works very well in special cases and has explained many of the optoelectronic effects of the devices we built and measured in our laboratories. One of the works was published in the Applied Physics Letters journal in 2013, and the other was published on Solar Energy Materials and Solar Cells in 2015.

On the other hand, I always dedicated myself to assembling research laboratories and forming human resources. I also have been contributing with several post-graduation programs, directly and indirectly, and for more than 20 years I have been dedicating myself to strengthening the area of Organic Electronics in the country, especially in the formation of a research network in this area: the National Institute of Science and Technology of Organic Electronics. Whenever possible, I try to encourage projects in partnership with private enterprises and research institutes that aim towards applied projects. In the public policies area, I believe my greatest participation was coordinating a document from CAPES (the Brazilian agency in charge of post-graduate programs) and SBPC (Brazilian Society for the Advancement of Science), called “Science, technology and innovation for a competitive Brazil”, which has contributed to the creation of the Brazilian Company of Industrial Research and Innovation (EMBRAPII).

SBPMat Newsletter: – You have just finished your tenure as President of SBPMat. Share with our readers an analysis of the results achieved by the boards you have headed during the last four years.

Roberto Mendonça Faria: – SBPMat is a relatively new society, but it has an important mission to fulfill for the development of the country. Brazil has an extraordinary richness offered to it by nature. However, the country does not take advantage of this richness because it places little knowledge over its natural resources. There was a revolution in agriculture after the country decided to put knowledge over this blessing that nature has offered to it. Today, agribusiness is one of the pillars, perhaps the strongest one, of our economy. We have to do the same with the raw matters that abound in our territory. The publication “Science Impact – A special report on materials science in Brazil”, in partnership with the Institute of Physics (IOP), was one of the projects that worked and gratified me very much. This type of initiative helps raising awareness that Brazil has a natural gift to be a leader in several materials-related segments and to generate a lot more richness than it currently does.

Another valuable contribution that the two previous SBPMat administrations gave to materials science and engineering in Brazil was the definite consolidation and internationalization of the annual meeting, which always take place at the end of September.

I must highlight that the creation of the bilingual electronic newsletter was a realization that worked, especially because of the capability it has been produced with.

SBPMat Newsletter: – You just took over, for two years, the second vice-presidency of IUMRS. Talk about your plans, expectations…

Roberto Mendonça Faria: – I’m starting this activity. My plans are, first of all, to increasingly insert the Brazilian Materials Science in the international scenario. At the same time, I intend to use the IUMRS support to stimulate materials research in other Latin American countries. Brazil and Latin America have many problems that come from their still deficient economies. I have conviction that research studies in the materials area are valuable instruments to improve the living conditions of these populations. Today, as a member of the SBPMat council, I want to take this discussion not only in Brazil, but in several Latin American countries with the help from IUMRS.

SBPMat Newsletter: – Leave a message for the readers that are starting their scientific careers.

Roberto Mendonça Faria: – I decided to register here that one of the fulfillments (still in progress) that makes our administration proud was the creation of the University Chapters program. I’m going to ask the council to allow me to work with Professor Rodrigo F. Bianchi within this program. I have no doubts that the more researchers we form, the more Brazil will gain with this.

I believe that the work with young people starting scientific activity is one of the most valuable works for a senior researcher. It is our duty to show young people how important the work of “manufacturing knowledge” is for the country, especially in scientific and technological areas. There isn’t one example of a country that has eradicated poverty without the development of strong education and competitive science and technology. Therefore, the message to young people is: believe in your work and always try to make it in the most competent way possible.

SBPMat in the vice-presidency of IUMRS through Prof. Roberto Faria.

Professor Roberto Mendonça Faria (São Carlos Institute of Physics – University of São Paulo), president of SBPMat since 2012, was elected second vice-president of the International Union of Materials Research Societies (IUMRS), an international association whose members are scientific societies or technical groups interested in promoting interdisciplinary research and education in the Materials field. IUMRS currently congregates the materials research societies of Africa, Australia, Brazil, China, Europe, India, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Russia, Singapore and Taiwan.

The election was made by voting during the IUMRS-ICAM event (Jeju, Korea, October 25 to 29), more precisely at the General Assembly of IUMRS, the annual meeting of the representatives of the adhering bodies. The participants at the meeting voted after hearing the candidates’ action plans. Professor Faria, representing SBPMat, won the voting against researchers from China, Japan and United States. His proposal consisted in a stronger activity in the Latin American countries.

Succeeding a representative of the Chinese materials research society (Chinese – MRS), Prof. Yafang Hane, Faria takes over for two years the second vice-presidency of IUMRS, from January 1st, 2016 onwards.

Professor Robert Chang (Northwestern University), general secretary of IUMRS and one of the founders of the entity, stated that he expects that Professor Faria’s participation in the Executive Board of IUMRS will help expand the entity’s activities in South America.