{"id":9987,"date":"2022-11-04T11:02:56","date_gmt":"2022-11-04T14:02:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sbpmat.org.br\/?p=9987"},"modified":"2022-11-08T21:11:08","modified_gmt":"2022-11-09T00:11:08","slug":"reportagem-do-xxi-b-mrs-meeting-a-alegria-do-encontro-presencial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sbpmat.org.br\/en\/reportagem-do-xxi-b-mrs-meeting-a-alegria-do-encontro-presencial\/","title":{"rendered":"Report of the XX B-MRS Meeting: the joy of a face-to-face meeting."},"content":{"rendered":"

Every year, at the end of\u00a0the\u00a0meeting of the Brazilian Materials Research Society, the next year’s event is announced: its date,\u00a0chairs and, most importantly, the city where it will be held. However, with Foz do Igua\u00e7u, one of the most beautiful destinations in the world, things happened differently. The announcement was made in September 2019, but the event only took place three years later. The blame for the delay was, of course, the pandemic. In 2020, the meeting was postponed. In 2021, it was carried out in an online format, always under the coordination of Professor Gustavo Dalpian (UFABC), who skillfully dealt with the challenges of a difficult period. Finally, in September 2021, at the end of the online meeting, Professors Lucimara Stolz Roman (UFPR) and Marcela Mohallem Oliveira (UTFPR), were\u00a0presented as the\u00a0chairladies of the XX B-MRS Meeting, and announced what many expected: the event would be held in Foz do Igua\u00e7u, the following year.<\/p>\n

\"cataratas\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This is how, after three years without face-to-face meetings, around 1,100 people from the five continents of the planet and the five regions of Brazil gathered in Foz do Igua\u00e7u from September 25 to 29, 2022. \u201cThe twentieth meeting of\u00a0B-MRS was very important for the materials community to meet in person again after the Covid-19 pandemic\u201d, said Professor Lucimara. \u201cThe joy of the people, the students, especially those who were attending a face-to-face conference for the first time, was contagious\u201d, expressed the chairlady.<\/p>\n

Along that week, human warmth made up for the cold weather which was unusual for the season. And the event’s venue, the Rafain hotel’s<\/a> convention center, perfectly accommodated the participants, allowing them to spend the whole day there without being exposed to the rain, and providing interactions, not only in the presentation rooms, but also in the large space that became an exclusive restaurant for\u00a0the attendees, and in the wide corridor with tables and chairs that were always occupied by groups of researchers and students. Adjacent to the hotel’s garden, the corridor welcomed participants every morning to the sound of the song of several Atlantic Forest birds. Another environment of many exchanges was the space that comfortably contained the secretary, the 22 exhibitors’ stands, the coffee break tables and the posters. There, participants could circulate freely, satisfying their curiosity about the products and services for materials research that were exhibited or demonstrated in the stands, or exchanging scientific ideas with the posters\u00b4presenters.<\/p>\n

\"expositor-corredor\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThis exciting return to a face-to-face meeting with many participants was made possible not only by the fact that science won the battle of Covid, but also by the strength and resilience of our interdisciplinary community, which came to the event despite all the difficulties we face at the moment in the country\u201d, said professor M\u00f4nica Cotta (Unicamp), B-MRS President.<\/p>\n

And it is worth mentioning: the abundant face-to-face exchanges coexisted with virtual exchanges throughout the event. Hundreds of stories and posts from participants bubbled up on social media, extending the reach of face-to-face moments.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Emotions in the opening session<\/strong><\/h3>\n

On Sunday, September 25, around 7:30 pm, around 900 people occupied the Amaz\u00f4nia room at the Rafain convention center. Number above expectations: several had to\u00a0stand in the back of the room. The desire to participate was strong! \u201cLooking at that event room with hundreds of people in the audience was so exciting for me, I had a unique feeling of happiness to have participated in this organization after the pandemic and to see that we were able to structure ourselves, to return to our normal\u201d, said chairlady Lucimara.
\n\"pelanaria\"<\/a><\/p>\n

We were in the twentieth edition of the\u00a0B-MRS annual event, but it was the first time that gender parity was seen at the opening table. There were three women at the table, and in the leadership: the two chairs\u00a0of the event and the B-MRS President. Besides them, Professors Rodrigo Martins (NOVA, Portugal) as president of the International Union of Materials Research Societies (IUMRS), Guillermo Sol\u00f3rzano (PUC-Rio) as leader of the creation of\u00a0B-MRS and first President of the society, and Roberto Faria (IFSC-USP), honored with the Joaquim da Costa Ribeiro Memorial Lecture – a B-MRS distinction for researchers of the community with a long trajectory and solid contributions.<\/p>\n

In her speech, the B-MRS President told\u00a0a story that happened in the 1990s that reinforces the importance of representativeness in workplaces. Chairlady Lucimara, who was a student at the time, was at Unicamp participating in an event when she visited a laboratory coordinated by M\u00f4nica, who was starting her career as a research professor at the Institute of Physics Gleb Wataghin (IFGW). The young Lucimara was surprised to see, for the first time, a woman coordinating a lab of experimental physics, which made her think that a career in this area would be possible. Today, Lucimara coordinates a productive research group on physics of materials at UFPR, and M\u00f4nica is the director of the IFGW. At the end of her speech, the president took the opportunity to present and launch the new visual identity of B-MRS, developed to celebrate the society’s 21 years, conveying the strength, excellence, enthusiasm, cohesion and diversity of the Brazilian materials research community.<\/p>\n

\"chairs<\/a><\/p>\n

In her presentation, Professor Lucimara called attention to the names of the rooms where the symposia would take place in the coming days: Rio de Janeiro, Foz do Igua\u00e7u, Recife, Florian\u00f3polis, Natal, Guaruj\u00e1, Ouro Preto, Gramado, Campos do Jord\u00e3o, Jo\u00e3o Pessoa, Campinas, and Balne\u00e1rio Cambori\u00fa. For those who had not yet discovered the criteria behind the choice, she revealed that these were the names of the cities in which\u00a0B-MRS meetings have already been held over the 20 editions. And \u201cAmaz\u00f4nia\u201d, the name of room for the plenary sessions? \u201cThe name of this room refers to the concern with sustainability that our scientific community has and\u00a0needs to have\u201d, she explained.<\/p>\n

Then, in an presentation\u00a0illustrated with many documents, Professor Sol\u00f3rzano told the story of the origins of B-MRS, emphasizing that the society was born with a proposal of interdisciplinarity and integration with the international scientific community. \u201cIn the first B-MRS Meeting we had 400 participants from 18 countries\u201d, highlighted the founding partner.<\/p>\n

Watch Guillermo Sol\u00f3rzano’s presentation:<\/strong><\/p>\n