The ICTP South American Institute for Fundamental Research (ICTP-SAIFR) located in São Paulo (Brazil) will start activities on February 6. The new center will be the first unit in South America of the International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP), headquartered in the São Paulo State University (UNESP).
For almost 50 years, the ICTP in Trieste has been a place where scientists from developing countries can interact with scientists doing groundbreaking research. With the recent economic and scientific growth of emerging countries, ICTP management has decided to create Regional Centers to play a similar role.
Nathan Berkovits, director of ICTP-SAIFR says: "The center will fulfill the role of assisting the advancement of scientific excellence in South America, becoming a center of excellence and making São Paulo a meeting place where researchers from across the continent can interact with the top talent in the world of theoretical physics."
The official opening ceremony of ICTP-SAIFR will be on February 6 with the presence of the steering committee including Fernando Quevedo (ICTP director), Julio Cezar Durigan (UNESP acting rector), Carlos Brito Cruz (FAPESP scientific director), Jacob Palis (Brazilian Academy of Science president) , Juan Maldacena (IAS Princeton), the scientific council including Peter Goddard (IAS Princeton director), Seifallah Randjbar-Daemi (ICTP vice-director), Juan Montero (IFT-UNESP director), Marcela Carena (Fermilab), Marcel Clerc (Univ. of Chile), Luiz Davidovich (Univ. Fed. of Rio de Janeiro), Daniel Sudarsky (UNAM México), Matias Zaldarriaga (IAS Princeton), Anthony Zee (UC Santa Barbara), Barton Zwiebach (MIT), and the ICTP-SAIFR acting director and vice-director, Nathan Berkovits (IFT-UNESP) and Rogério Rosenfeld (IFT-UNESP).
In a first phase, the ICTP-SAIFR will focus on areas such as gravitation, particle physics, superstring, complex systems, field theory and atomic and nuclear physics. In the future, activities will extend to all fields of theoretical physics.
The resources of the ICTP-SAIFR will be secured by a partnership between the Unesp, FAPESP and the ICTP. FAPESP will expend US$1.85 million for the installation of the center and to support fellowships to nine post-doctoral researchers and three visitors during five years. The project also envisages the organization of scientific meetings between researchers from Brazil and other continents.
In addition to hosting visiting researchers and post-docs, the ICTP-SAIFR will regularly organize schools and workshops for PhD students and will hire five permanent professors with the assistance of an international search committee composed of worldwide leaders in theoretical physics.
In 2012, ICTP-SAIFR will organize two-week schools on Mathematical Biology (January), Relativistic Astrophysics and Cosmology (July) and Symbolic Computation in Theoretical Physics (November), as well as the IX Latin-American Symposium on High-Energy Physics (December).
More information on ICTP-SAIFR: www.ictp-saifr.org