J. A. de Freitas Pacheco

A brief introduction

A Brazilian astrophysicist born in São Paulo (1942 December 14). He obtained his PhD in France (1971) and returned to Brazil in the same year. As a professor of the University of São Paulo (USP) he was the organizer of the graduate courses in Astronomy and Geophysics (1974) at the Institute of Astronomy, Geophysics and Atmospheric Sciences (IAG-USP), acting as its director during the period 1989-1993. He was one of the founders of the Brazilian Astronomical Society (SAB) and its first president and in the years 1979-1981 he was indicated as director of the National Observatory in Rio de Janeiro. After having participated in different official committees in Brazil, he was nominated in 1994 director of the Observatoire de la Côte d'Azur (Nice- France), creating the required facilities for the institute to develop activities related to the physics of gravitational waves and to participate in the Virgo project. Since 1999 he is a researcher of the Observatoire de la Côte d'Azur, working in the physics of compact objects, extragalactic astronomy and cosmology. He published 170 scientific papers, about 90 scientific communications in international colloquia, wrote several popular articles about astronomy and physics and was the director of about 25 PhD students. He is a member of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences and he was awarded by the Brazilian Society for the Progress of Science and by the Brazilian government with the Great Crux of the Scientific Merit.