In ceremony held on July 12th, Antonio José Roque da Silva took over as director general of the Brazilian Center for Research in Energy and Materials (CNPEM). Roque da Silva remains as director of the Sirius Project, the new Brazilian synchrotron light source. The appointment to the position was approved by the CNPEM Board of Directors after nomination from the Selection Committee, composed mostly by external members.

Since 2009, Roque da Silva had been the director of the Brazilian Synchrotron Light Laboratory (LNLS). This position will be handed over to Yves Petroff, a French physicist who was LNLS’ scientific director from November 2009 to March 2013.

Roque da Silva is a Full Professor at the Physics Institute of the University of São Paulo (USP); he has a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in Physics from the State University of Campinas (Unicamp); and a PhD from the University of California, Berkeley. Since 2017, he is a member of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences (ABC).

At the ceremony, both Rogério Cesar de Cerqueira Leite, Chairman of the Board, and Adalberto Fazzio, director of the Brazilian Nanotechnology National Laboratory (LNNano) and CNPEM former pro tempore director general, endorsed in their speech Roque da Silva’s experience and management skills.

Also present were the members of the CNPEM Board of Directors, Liu Lin and Oswaldo Luiz Alves; the director of the Brazilian Biosciences National Laboratory (LNBio), Kleber Franchini, and the director of the Brazilian Bioethanol Science and Technology Laboratory (CTBE), Eduardo do Couto e Silva.

Visit of the Minister of Education

José Roque guides the Minister of Education (center) on a visit to Sirius.

As his first official appointment, the new Director General welcomed the Minister of Education, Rossieli Soares, on a visit to the National Laboratories and the constructions works for Sirius.

On the occasion, the Minister was impressed with the campus’ infrastructure and with the qualification of the staff, emphasizing its importance for science and education in Brazil. According to the Minister: “Education is fundamental to support science and research. For the Ministry of Education, this infrastructure and its potential give us an increasing desire to invest, especially in the possibility of having more people accessing CNPEM during their education, both for undergraduate and graduate studies, and even in a partnership to bring prominent high school students to perform small experiments here so they can be encouraged to be future scientists, future physicists, chemists and biologists. “