Brazil - People

Oxford is currently home to just over 30 students from Brazil, the majority of whom are studying at post graduate level, most frequently in Engineering Science, Law and Oxford’s prestigious MBA programme at the Saïd Business School.

Brazilian students applying to Oxford have access to a range of scholarship opportunities to support their studies, particularly at graduate level. The Clarendon Fund provides over a hundred fully funded scholarships to academically outstanding students each year. Recent Brazilian Clarendon Scholars have studied a range of subjects from Plant Sciences to Medieval and Modern Languages.

Oxford also actively participates in well-known scholarship programmes (such as the British Government’s flagship Chevening Scholarships) and hosts a wide variety of post-doctoral Research Fellowships.

In 2012, an agreement was signed between Oxford University and CNPq (Brazilian National Council of Technological and Scientific Development), which will see CNPq offering full scholarships for up to 13 Brazilian students coming to Oxford to study for a DPhil or an Undergraduate degree in the MPLS or Medical Sciences Divisions. The agreement will come into force for students applying for entry in 2013.

At undergraduate level, Brazilian students studying for an Oxford degree are eligible to apply for the Reach Oxford Scholarships, which cover university and college fees, living expenses and annual return flights.

The Oxford Princeton Global Leaders Fellowship Programme is a post-doctoral fellowship in world politics and political economy for holders of a doctorate who are nationals of a non-OECD country, including Brazil. The Fellowships are extremely competitive, with fellows doing research at Oxford for one year, followed by a year at Princeton. Brazilian students have had an impressive success rate at securing these fellowships with four out of sixteen fellows over the past four years coming from Brazil.

Oxford currently has five permanent members of research and academic staff from Brazil, all of whom specialise in medical and physical sciences. In addition to these permanent members, Oxford frequently welcomes a considerable number of visiting academics and scholars across its divisions.

Professor Anna Christina Nobre
Anna Christina (Kia) Nobre directs the Oxford Centre for Human Brain Activity, a state-of-the-art facility for scientists investigating the neural dynamics that underpin human cognition and the neural deficits in psychiatric and neurological disorders. Professor Nobre is a world leader in cognitive neuroscience, widely recognised for her innovative and rigorous approach to fundamental questions about the human brain. Professor Nobre is a Delegate for the Oxford University Press (OUP), advisor to the James S. McDonnell Foundation Program in Understanding Human Cognition, member of the Wellcome Trust Neuroscience and Mental Health Expert Review Group, and serves on the editorial board of several journals.

Professor Nobre grew up in Rio de Janeiro and then completed her university education in the United States, where she obtained her PhD from Yale University. She first moved to Oxford in 1994 to take up a Lectureship in Cognitive Neuroscience and a Junior Research Fellowship at New College.

Dr Wen Hwa Lee
Dr Wen Hwa Lee is currently Scientific Coordinator at the Structural Genomics Consortium at the University of Oxford. The Structural Genomics Consortium is an international public-private partnership that supports the discovery of new medicines through an innovative and pioneering open access research model. Presently the SGC is funded by charities, government agencies and six major pharmaceutical companies. Under the SGC’s main ethos of Open Access and Pre-Competitive Research, Lee has been involved in the planning of strategies, collaborations and alliances with external partners at institutional level to promote the discovery of new medicines and therapies through basic research.

Lee has a BSc and MSc in Molecular Biology from the University of Campinas (UNICAMP) in Brazil. Subsequently Lee obtained his PhD at the Laboratório Nacional de Luz Síncrotron (LNLS - Brazilian National Laboratory of Synchrotron Light) and UNICAMP. His training included Biology, Molecular and Structural Biology, Protein Crystallography, Computational Biology and Drug Discovery, gathered in places as diverse as Brazil, USA (The Scripps Research Institute), France (Université Paris V) and UK (Oxford).

Oxford currently has more than 250 alumni living in Brazil, of Brazilian and other nationalities, and more than 40 Brazilian alumni living overseas.

Oxford alumni of all nationalities who now live in Brazil and neighbouring countries can link with each other via the Oxford University Society alumni group in Brazil which holds an annual Oxford & Cambridge Dinner for Oxbridge alumni in the region to meet and socialise.

In addition, an Oxford Business Alumni chapter was launched in São Paulo in August 2012, in the presence of the Vice Chancellor Professor Andrew Hamilton, which will see levels of alumni activity in Brazil increasing in the coming years.

Oxford’s famous Brazilian alumni include Marcus Vinícius da Cruz e Mello Moraes (also known as Vinícius de Moraes and nicknamed O Poetinha (the little poet)) who was a poet, essayist, playwright, lyricist, and a seminal figure in contemporary Brazilian music.