Some reflections of 2022 and 2023 (so far!)
- B. Ramos
- Apr 22, 2023
- 2 min read
Time flies by so quickly! Can you believe that we are already one third into 2023? Even though the weather is cooling down in the tropics, the research is as hot as ever!
In the last months of 2022, I started working at the State Institute of Technological Research (more about it here), more specifically at the Bionanomanufacturing Center - a research unit heavily focused on disruptive R&D technologies. I will soon prepare a post to showcase some of the crazy things we have been working on!
In the last few months of 2022, I had the opportunity to participate in the CIPOA conference in Cuzco, Peru. This was my first time visiting Peru, and I was absolutely blown away by the country's natural beauty, rich culture, and warm hospitality. The conference itself was also top-notch, with high-quality presentations and discussions.
I was thrilled to have won the best poster presentation award at the conference! It was an incredible experience to have my work recognized and appreciated by my peers in the field. If you're interested, you can check out some photos of the conference below.
November 2022 was a momentous time for us as we submitted four manuscripts to a special issue of the journal Water, as suggested by our former labmate Catia. These manuscripts are a testament to the hard work of our graduate students and the collaborations we have with our former grad school colleague, who is now a professor at the Federal Institute in Capivari. Through this experience, I have come to appreciate that science is a collective phenomenon, and good research is built on collaboration and multidisciplinary interaction. You can find the links to these papers in the Publications section of our website.
2023 has started on a high note, as we published two papers in February, followed by two more in the months to come. The first two papers were the outcome of our brilliant undergraduate students' hard work. One paper presents an optimized photo-Fenton-like process using persulfate and intensified in a micro-reactor, while the other reports the development of a spray-pyrolysis technique to fabricate thin-films of Cl-doped ZnO. The two latter papers were the result of fruitful collaborations. One was with our colleagues from Goiás and Mato Grosso do Sul, where we reported on the acidic hydrolysis of ametryn - a widely used pesticide in midwestern Brazil, published in Chemosphere. The second paper was an essay on Chemical Engineering education in our department. It discusses the ongoing curriculum modernization program and presents some innovative teaching experiences developed in some of the undergraduate courses. I am proud that this paper is my first publication in Education. You can find links to these papers in the Publications section of our website. Overall, the past year has been filled with exciting research opportunities and fruitful collaborations. As we move forward into the remaining months of 2023, I'm looking forward to seeing what new discoveries and innovations lie ahead. I'm grateful for the hard work of my students and colleagues, and I'm proud of our collective contributions to the scientific community. Thank you for reading, and stay tuned for more updates on our ongoing research projects!
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