14/04/2020

Ricardo Castilho defends his doctoral thesis via videoconference.

About to receive his doctorate from IMPA, Ricardo Castilho will not have the thesis defense experience he imagined, with colleagues and professors from the examining board gathered at the institute's headquarters. Because of Covid-19, he will present his work via videoconference this Wednesday (15), at 1:30 pm. Optimistic, he was not shaken by the change. “It seems like a good solution. It's different but I'm confident that things will work out,” said Castilho, who will be the first of a series of students who will use technology to defend their theses .

Titled “On supercurves with a fixed volume superform,” the thesis was supervised by researcher Reimundo Heluani, who was a great inspiration for Ricardo's project. “It's somewhat a continuation of Reimundo's thesis work. When I read his work, I liked it, and I decided to work more on it,” says the doctoral student, who encountered difficulties in finding a correct bibliography with uniform notation.

Born and raised in Callao, a coastal city on the Pacific Ocean in the Lima metropolitan area, Peru, the mathematician had a childhood "like almost everyone else's," watching television and playing with neighbors. "I didn't think much about what I would do in the future, but I always really liked science. When choosing a career, I thought I would like to study more applied things, like some kind of engineering or architecture."

His talent with numbers and his skill in logical reasoning earned him a silver medal at the 2009 International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO) and led him to graduate in the field from the National University of San Marcos. “There I met many great people, both professors and students. I became friends with professors Jesús Zapata and Jonathan Farfan, who did their doctorates at IMPA and greatly influenced me to pursue a career in mathematics.”

The years at university also broadened Ricardo's perception of his country. “It was a time when I recognized my privileges and understood how education can still improve. I met people from different parts of the country, who came from different realities and with new customs, and I realized how big the country is.”

The pace of studies intensified during his master's degree at the Institute of Mathematics and Related Sciences (IMCA, Peru), and the student had to give up some distractions he was used to enjoying, such as video games and movies. “It was a change for the greater good, because it ended up preparing me for my doctorate. I had millions of books to read in a short time. I learned that mathematics requires a lot of reading,” says the Peruvian, who was delving into algebraic topology.

In the final stretch before completing another academic stage, Ricardo expresses his gratitude to his advisor. “He’s a really great professor who manages to present theorems in a very natural way in the classroom. I also learned from him to understand things in an abstract, nonsensical way , which helped me with the more complicated topics in algebra.”

Driven by a desire to motivate people to delve into mathematics and algebra, the doctoral student wants to become a professor in the future. "Mathematics is the path that has helped me understand the world, from simple problems like choosing a route to follow, to more complicated things, like choosing what to do in the future," he concludes.