OBMEP medalist speaks with Nobel Prize winners.

For a young scientist, it is difficult to imagine greater prestige than talking to a Nobel Prize winner. On Tuesday (16), Heloísa Gabriela Paterno, from Santa Catarina, a medalist at OBMEP and protagonist of a distinguished academic career, was able to enjoy this opportunity in a dialogue that brought together 80 Brazilian, Latin American and Caribbean students to discuss the role of science with five Nobel laureates who changed the world with their discoveries. Heloísa's participation, who is currently studying mathematics at the Federal Institute of Education, Science and Technology of Santa Catarina (IFC), was the subject of a report shown on the Bom Dia Santa Catarina news program on Tuesday (16).

In the report, the Santa Catarina native spoke about the effect that participating in knowledge olympiads like the OBMEP (Brazilian Mathematics Olympiad for Public Schools), in which she competed for the first time at age 10, had on her trajectory. “After I finished high school, I was very much focused on how the olympiads and event opportunities had a huge impact on my life. It was through education that I started to think, 'okay, this is a career for me, this is my future,' and then I chose to actually pursue a degree in mathematics,” she said.

Promoted by the Nobel Prize Outreach, the Brazilian Academy of Sciences (ABC), and the Inter-American Network of Academies of Sciences (IANAS), the Nobel Prize Dialogue for Latin America and the Caribbean was held virtually, with the aim of discussing the role of scientists and building dialogue between science, political authorities, and society. The laureates who spoke with the students were French microbiologist Emmanuelle Charpentier, winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2020; Australian Elizabeth Blackburn and Norwegian May-Britt Moser, winners of the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 2009 and 2014, respectively; American Saul Perlmutter, Nobel Prize in Physics in 2011; and Dutchman Bernard Feringa, Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2016.

Heloísa was one of the 16 Brazilian students selected for the meeting, and she reports having left the conversation inspired. “The main lesson I learned was about collaboration among scientists. Saul said something that has stuck with me ever since: when scientists get together, they don't get together so that one can talk about their research to the other to show what they did, but so that one can tell the other what was done wrong. I think that's something I'll carry with me for the rest of my life, continuing to emphasize the importance of having this dialogue to do science,” said the student from Santa Catarina.

And the experience was positive not only for the students. The vice-president of ABC and also co-president of IANAS, Helena Nader, said that the Nobel laureates also left fascinated by the conversation. “What they saw is a Brazil and a Latin America of brilliant young people, who need many opportunities to put the world in the right place. It's about believing in youth,” summarized Nader, one of the organizers of the meeting.