29/03/2021

In the book "Inspiring Stories from OBMEP": Marcus de Oliveira

Mathematics is practice. It was with this certainty, and through much practice, that Marcus Vinicius de Oliveira won two medals at the Brazilian Mathematics Olympiad for Public Schools (OBMEP). Accustomed to the rigorous teaching at Cefet in Belo Horizonte, he won a gold medal in his second year of high school and a silver medal the following year. This was an incentive to continue studying and focus even more on his dream of becoming an engineer.

“The medals served as an incentive for me to try to improve, to demand better results from myself, to solve new problems, to expose myself to more complicated ones. Mathematics is daily practice, it's dedication, an aptitude that develops as you expose yourself to it,” says Marcus, 28. When he was in his third semester of electrical engineering at the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG), in 2009, Marcus was part of the first class of the Scientific Initiation and Master's Program (Picme).

He began to combine mandatory engineering classes with master's level courses in Mathematics, in addition to working in the university's computer lab. He completed all the necessary courses to defend his dissertation and graduated in 2012 with his postgraduate work already finished. He earned his master's degree a year later.

When he was in his third semester of electrical engineering at the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG) in 2009, Marcus was part of the first class of the Scientific Initiation and Master's Program (Picme). He began to combine his mandatory engineering classes with master's level courses in mathematics, in addition to working in the university's computer lab. He completed all the necessary courses to defend his dissertation and graduated in 2012 with his postgraduate work already finished. He earned his master's degree a year later.

“Picme was fundamental; I kept the scholarship until the end of my master's degree, and my dissertation was in the area of dynamical systems, which is directly important to my field of study. I am a much better engineer than I would be if I hadn't studied so much mathematics. The program trained a generation that knew how to apply mathematics, especially to engineering problems,” he said. “It was difficult to balance everything; I used the one-hour bus trip to Contagem to study,” he recounts.

Even before finishing his master's degree, he began studying for the Petrobras entrance exam. He passed, applying as an electrical engineer, and completed the mandatory one-year training for new engineers at the company in Rio. Due to the state-owned oil company's needs, he went to work in Macaé (RJ), where he lived for almost two years. Working on land made him realize that he wanted to work directly with oil exploration, "because electrical engineering is a very interesting area, but it's not Petrobras' core business."

He took another competitive exam, this time for petroleum engineering, and passed again. He completed another one-year course, this time in Salvador, and since January has been working on the reservoir side of the Libra Field, in the pre-salt layer of the Santos Basin. Marcus works in the area of oil flow in the porous medium, between the rocks, alongside geologists. Together, they drill, collect material, and study ways to "maximize production and minimize costs," he explains. He lives in Rio, but travels frequently to Santos (SP). The pre-salt field is not yet in operation. The oil is 5,000 meters below the surface – 2,000 meters of water and another 3,000 meters of rock. "Petrobras already explores extensively in the pre-salt; it's the only company in the world that can extract from such deep layers. We already know how to do it, but the studies don't stop." Today, mathematics plays a stronger role in his life than when he worked in electrical engineering. The reservoir flow is governed by a partial differential equation, in a domain the size of the city of Rio.

“We work with simulators, making predictions, and we solve the equation on the computer. A megacomputer with hundreds of processors running. In my master's degree, I studied how to transform an unstable system into a stable one, using my hand as a control by swinging a pendulum. These are dynamic systems, which have applications in flow engineering. Mathematics contributes both to the interpretation and to the development of simulation tools,” explains the engineer.

Professor Sylvie Oliffson Kamphorst, from UFMG, recounts that Marcus was part of a “very interesting group that had several engineering students” and was self-taught. “Marcus is from the first cohort of Picme. He was already very sharp when we took him to Picme, he was already ready. He was always self-taught, he studied alone, I imagine he already had a long-standing interest in Mathematics. He was excellent, we didn't need to push him. What we did was give him the opportunity to do something more structured. He quickly reached a level of training sufficient to do the activities of the master's program,” she recalls. According to the professor, that entire Picme group was very strong. “They are students with a very different profile. Fortunately, OBMEP and Picme made these people stand out and gave them support.”

Indeed, Marcus always enjoyed studying. His parents played a fundamental role, although they didn't study much themselves. Housewife Dirce Oliveira, 54, says her son loved "facing a test." "We encouraged him. The wealth we can leave our children is knowledge, because we don't have money. The first time he traveled by plane was to receive his gold medal, awarded in Recife. Marcus and his sister, who is graduating in medicine, studied their whole lives in public schools. He fills us with pride," says his mother.

* Text taken from the book “Inspiring Stories of OBMEP”