“I was born in Cangas del Narcea, a mining town in Asturias (Spain) and was baptized with the name José Mario in memory of two of my mother's brothers: Mario died fighting fascism in the Spanish civil war, and Jose, known as Pepe, died in a concentration camp in 1942, after being captured in France by the Nazis.” This was how José Maria Martínez Pérez, honored with the title of Professor Emeritus at Unicamp, began to tell his trajectory marked by fascism to a respectful audience, in the University Council room, on Tuesday afternoon.
“At the same time, in our home village, my brother and my father’s cousin were murdered by Spanish fascists”, continues the professor at the Institute of Mathematics, Statistics and Scientific Computing (Imecc). “My grandfathers were fervent Catholics and my grandmothers were fervent anticlericals. It is said that my father's mother went to knock on the door of the barracks where he was being held: 'don't torture my son, if you're going to kill him, kill him like they already killed one, but don't torture him'. My mother, in the last months of her life, semi-conscious, never stopped repeating the names of her dead brothers.”
José Maria Martínez went on to say that his parents decided to emigrate to Argentina in search of a better future for him, having studied in public schools since primary school. “I entered the University of Buenos Aires, naturally also public, secular and free, with many doubts regarding my vocation – and taking advantage of the fact that I was allowed to pursue two careers simultaneously. The time I studied at the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters was important for my education. Interestingly, I passed the final exam with professor Maurício Knobel three days after the birth of his son Marcelo [Knobel, current dean of Unicamp].”
Admitting that his interest and talent for the human sciences were quite limited, the professor emeritus ended up falling in love with the so-called transfinite mathematics, created by the German Georg Cantor at the end of the 19th century. “Transfinite mathematics is probably the area of mathematics closest to philosophy and also of art. Like philosophy, this mathematics seeks to rationally elucidate the true nature and meaning of knowledge.”
According to Martínez, the restoration of democracy in 1973 motivated many young mathematicians to feel urgent to do something more directly related to what they called national reconstruction. “But in September 74, the democratic government was captured by a fascist gang and public universities were dismantled by a ridiculous Minister of Education. Shortly afterwards I was hired by the Bariloche Foundation, which was dedicated to scientific development linked to social, natural sciences, biology and mathematics.”
The Imecc professor says he emigrated to Brazil in 1976, taking “preventative action”, after in March of that year the military implemented a dictatorship that he considers responsible for the biggest genocide in Argentine history. “In Rio de Janeiro we enjoyed the hospitality and generosity of Professor Candido Mendes, who hired me and my companions to develop applications of the Latin American world model developed under the direction of Professor Amílcar Herrera – who would later be founder of the Geosciences Institute at Unicamp . Consistently, the model demonstrated that sustainable development and the mitigation of inequality could be achieved through economic planning and the cooperation of human societies.”
Regarding his trajectory within Imecc, Martínez believes that he was successful in creating a numerical optimization research group – an area that was very incipient in Brazil – and that today is spread from North to South of Brazil, extending to Argentina, Colombia and other Latin American countries. “The group was born strong and has developed a lot in over 40 years. We have a leading position in the three aspects of our research: one of them is purely mathematical, theoretical, the so-called pure mathematics; another that is intensely practical, working with researchers from other sectors and developing techniques linked to them; and a third central aspect, which is the development of methods (algorithms) that are in the public domain and widely accessed via the internet. I think we did a good job.”
The professor emeritus also addressed the issue of university autonomy established in 1989, seeing it as a necessary advancement desired by broad sectors of the academic community, but he puts his finger on a sore spot. “Many of us, myself included, doubly deceive ourselves. On the one hand, we think that within the framework of autonomy we could respond to most of the university's problems and dilemmas; on the other hand, we came to believe that strictly university issues had meaning independently of the debate about Latin American or planetary national destinies. Reality knocked on our door in 2015. Suddenly we found ourselves in an unknown country, in an unknown world. It was necessary to understand that our coexistence with a new country was conflictive, that institutional umbrellas were fragile and that, however, the country of the 21st century needed the type of knowledge, reflections and projects that universities should be able to offer .”
Emotion and gratitude
Professor Teresa Atvars, general coordinator of Unicamp, who represented rector Marcelo Knobel at the extraordinary university assembly, said that the ceremony, despite being formal, mixed emotion, recognition and gratitude, and reason and rationality. “From this mixture comes this set of actions that culminated in a great class given by our recently appointed professor emeritus. It was a historical lesson that, if we change the dates, we will recognize the current moment that Brazil is going through, including even the ridiculous ministers, perhaps even with a certain prominence in the case of Education.
In the opinion of professor Nelson Maculan Filho, the honoree's godfather and who advised him on his doctoral thesis defended at UFRJ, José Mario Martínez would be a professor emeritus at any university in the world, for his activities in mathematical sciences and also for his example. “Nobody trains anyone, but they can be an example for others in life. He went to school, formed research groups. And I get very emotional because he was my student. I’m 77 and he’s 72.”
Francisco de Assis Magalhães Gomes, vice-rector of University Development at Unicamp and professor at Imecc, was supervised in his master's degree by professor Ana Friedlander, Martínez's wife, and in his doctorate by the honoree himself. “Arriving in Campinas as a recently graduated civil engineer [from UnB], adapting to mathematics was difficult, even more so when changing cities. They always welcomed me with great willingness and interest. They were not just advisors, but an example to be followed on how to treat people ethically and produce science correctly. Teaching classes, Professor Martínez is spectacular, complete as we other teachers would like to be. But he succeeds, while we are always searching.”
Still wearing cleats
The professor emeritus retired after 41 years at Imecc, but believes he is still far from “hanging up his boots”, as he says, and has been participating in the Research and Action Group on Conflicts, Risks and Impacts Associated with Dams (Criab) , from IG/Unicamp. “It is an interdisciplinary project that began a year ago, after the Brumadinho catastrophe, aimed at understanding, preventing and repairing ecological disasters caused mainly by the collapse of dams. The work is coordinated by Professor Jefferson Picanço, perhaps not by chance, a geoscientist like Amílcar Herrera.”
José Mario Martínez recalls that, when he arrived in Brazil in 1976, he planned to return to Argentina in 1981, which did not happen. “Now I’m not going back, I have my family consolidated here. He was already married and had a son born in Bariloche, now a professor at Unicamp [Julian, from FEA]; I have another son who was born in Campinas and is a professor at Unicamp [Leandro, from IQ]; and also my daughter-in-law, who is a professor at Unicamp [Camila, from IQ]. We are all hanging on to Unicamp.”
WHO IS IT
José Mario Martínez Pérez was born in Spain on May 22, 1948 and emigrated with his parents to Argentina in 1951. He studied primary and secondary at a public school. He has a degree in mathematics from the University of Buenos Aires (1971), where he served as an assistant professor between 1971 and 1974. In 1975 and 1976 he was a researcher at Fundación Bariloche. He married Ana Friedlander, also a mathematician, in 1972, with whom he has two sons, Julián and Leandro. In 1976 he emigrated to Brazil.
He worked as a researcher at Universidade Cândido Mendes at the same time as completing his doctorate at UFRJ (1978), when he was hired by Unicamp for the Department of Applied Mathematics (DMA). He supervised 38 master's theses and 47 doctoral theses, three of which were awarded, one of which received the Capes Grand Prize (2010).
He was the founder of the Research Group on Computational Optimization Methods, one of the most relevant at the Institute and with great national repercussion. He also played a fundamental role in the creation of the Applied Mathematics Laboratory, as well as the current Continuous Optimization Laboratory, serving as head of the Department on several occasions, as well as coordinator of the Postgraduate Program in Applied Mathematics and general coordinator of the Postgraduate Program from Imecc.
He recently retired as a full professor and 1A researcher from CNPq. He has been a full member of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences since 2009, the year in which he was awarded the Order of Scientific Merit. He was awarded the Zeferino Vaz Academic Recognition Award for two consecutive years (2002 and 2003). According to ISI Webofscience's accounting, he published 210 scientific articles, with around 4.4800 citations.
