21/11/2022

For Women in Science: ABC awards scientist from UFSCar.

Data scientist Daiane Aparecida Zuanetti, a professor at the Federal University of São Carlos (Ufscar), was the winner in the Mathematics category of the 17th edition of the For Women in Science program, an initiative promoted by the Brazilian Academy of Sciences (ABC) in partnership with L'Oréal and Unesco.

The goal is to promote and recognize women's participation in science, encouraging gender parity. To enable her to continue her studies, the scientist was awarded a grant of R$ 50,000 – the same amount received by the other six winners.

The project developed by Zuanetti seeks to propose effective and efficient statistical methods to describe trends and make predictions from genetic data, analyzing RNA sequences found in single cells, that is, analyzed individually, and not en masse.

The expectation is that the new computational methodologies will be made publicly available to the scientific community. The idea is that the innovations will be applied not only in the area of human health, but also in research on animal health and genetic improvement of plants for agriculture.

The award ceremony will be held at L'Oréal headquarters in Rio de Janeiro on November 30th. Over its 17 editions, the initiative has recognized the significant work of 117 Brazilian scientists, distributing more than R$ 4.7 million in grants.

In addition to Mathematics, the For Women in Science program selected four winners in the Life Sciences field: researcher Patrícia Takako Endo from the University of Pernambuco; pharmaceutical-biochemist Tathiane Malta from the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences of Ribeirão Preto, University of São Paulo; pharmacist Gisely Cardoso de Melo, researcher at the Dr. Heitor Vieira Dourado Tropical Medicine Foundation (AM); and biologist Grazielle Sales Teodoro, researcher at the Federal University of Pará.

In the field of Chemical Sciences, the winner was chemist Giovana Anceski Bataglion; while in Physical Sciences, the award went to Fernanda Selingardi Matias, a researcher at the Federal University of Alagoas.

The main criteria for evaluating the candidates were scientific quality and impact of current and previous research, productivity, and the potential for success of the projects.

The Director-General of IMPA, Marcelo Viana, was one of the members of the jury, which was composed of researchers appointed by ABC, a representative from UNESCO, and a representative from L'Oréal. The jury was chaired by the director of ABC, Helena Nader.

In the 2018 edition, Italian Luna Lomonaco, a researcher at IMPA, was one of the seven award winners. In 2020, Professor María Amelia Salazar from the Federal Fluminense University (UFF), who completed her doctorate at IMPA between 2014 and 2017, was the winner in the Mathematics category.