Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
I was born in a very small village in the Amazon forest named Cruzeiro do Sul. When I was a boy, I would enjoy hearing the stories about the stars my grandmother used to tell, and together we would watch the artificial satellites passing over our village. There was no electric light, and the sky was wonderful. That drove me to science. I work on event simulation for DUNE, and it is nice to be on the forefront of particle physics and to participate in such an ambitious project. A few years ago, I wrote a play, ‘Imagine this stage that warps,’ that talks about connections of the human being with the universe, physics, astronomy, anguishes in late night, some anecdotes about my life in Amazon, etc. It is an improbable recipe, but it seems to have worked. It ran for twelve weeks in one of the best-known theaters in Rio, two seasons elsewhere, and was nominated for important theater prizes in Brazil. I had a lot of fun with that project.