Claudio Airoldi, professor at the Institute of Chemistry at Unicamp, has just received the first edition of the 2006 Scopus Award in Brasília. An initiative by the publisher Elsevier Brasil, with the support of the Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (Capes), of the Ministry of Education, the award includes Brazilian researchers who, throughout their academic career, have presented excellent production in the Scopus Database, the most comprehensive in summaries and references on the market. The number of articles published, citations received and mentored also served as a parameter for the selection of the 16 recipients in the area of ​​Exact and Earth Sciences. The Scopus Base is part of the Capes Periodical Portal, which Elsever for Latin America considers to be of essential importance due to its coverage in the country.

Priority to training
From Human Resources

Hired at the beginning of 1968, Claudio Airoldi is the dean of the Institute of Chemistry, but this title should not evoke the figure of the wise old man with white hair and a slow walk. At 64 years old and four decades at Unicamp to be completed at the end of 2007, Airoldi has the same physical size as he did during his football days with his Chemistry colleagues at USP, where he graduated in 1967. His gestures are restrained and his speech is slow. At the then newly created IQ at Unicamp, he took root as a researcher and professor, building a trajectory that in many aspects is intertwined with the history of the unit itself.

Claudio Airoldi had a significant participation in the area of ​​inorganic chemistry, although he leaves this assessment to the observer. But he feels rewarded. “My work is not directly aimed at practical applications, it involves interesting aspects of knowledge, such as interpreting certain results in a quantitative way. They clarify, for example, how transformations occur on certain surfaces, the importance of a certain surface phenomenon and even the separation of certain metals in mixtures. If my research has practical use, great, but I am particularly interested in expanding knowledge,” he says.

Airoldi supervised 39 theses, most of them doctoral ones, which resulted in the publication of more than 300 works. The training of human resources, mainly doctorates and post-doctorates, constitutes its fundamental objective. “I supervised students who, for the most part, teach at other universities. They became researchers who carry out their work competently and, in some way, I feel like I am participating in their successes. This spread of knowledge is what satisfies me the most. I could have been retired a long time ago, but I will continue here doing this work until they allow it.”

Airoldi is proud to note that the Institute of Chemistry is on par with many major foreign institutions in terms of equipment, personnel and productivity: “Our publications attest to this and we have a high number of postgraduate students. The difficulties we face are inherent to the country and are generally related to the lack of quick responses to research needs”, he agrees. As an example, the professor recalls how time-consuming it is to import reagents and that the maintenance of imported devices becomes a drama. “Experienced Brazilian researchers look for shortcuts to get around these problems and, as a result, cannot always do what they consider most important; he limits himself to selecting what is possible to do. Developed centers evolve much faster because they have critical mass and technological power”.

In these 40 years at Unicamp, Claudio Airoldi worried little about bureaucratic positions. He arrives very early and admits that his performance drops significantly at the end of the day. But he says with satisfaction that when giving a lecture at a university in the Northeast, a former student introduced him as “a present advisor”, an aspect that had never occurred to him. “Then I realized that I am here every day and available to students and mentors.” At the time of this interview, he was on paid leave and exempt from classes, but that doesn't mean he stops attending the university every day. “I only take regular vacations,” he assures.

The professor is proud of certain precepts, such as always encouraging postgraduate students to return to their home universities to do research. “I never motivated them to seek political positions. I got into it led by circumstances and I didn't like it. Even so, one of my doctors died when he was running for rector, another was rector for eight years and a third is starting the path to the same position, all of them at universities in the Northeast”, he recalls. Another incentive for students is to expand their knowledge. “I propose a job, but in reality I hope that the student goes much further, as this is important for life and career. I ask that you make the most of your time at Unicamp, which is unique and which many people do not have the chance to enjoy.”

The calorimeter – The dean of the Institute of Chemistry was also its first doctorate (1970) and first associate professor (1979), having become full professor in 1988. “Airoldi has a wide range of academic interests, a prolific scientific production and has been making a contribution important in the training of human resources”¸ endorses professor Ronaldo Pillli, current director of the unit. The Scopus award provides an opportunity for IQ colleagues, represented by the board, to pay tribute to Airoldi. Invited to give a conference – preceded by a small reception – this December 6th, at 16 pm, in the Institute's amphitheater, the professor chose a theme that is emblematic for him: “Chemical energetics as a source of learning, teaching and training of human Resources".

The theme is a reference to the work developed with undergraduate and postgraduate students based on the first calorimeter introduced in Brazil. Airoldi says that, in mid-1973, she traveled to England for postdoctoral research, where she stayed for a year. “When I returned, the Brazilian miracle was happening, there was money and investment. The few chemists at Unicamp who set out to carry out research in inorganics were looking for directions different from those followed in the country, which led them to decide to purchase a calorimeter, an extraordinary instrument for the time. We were pioneers and today we have become a center of excellence in Latin America.”

The teacher recalls that no one in the group knew how to handle the device and exploring it was a learning experience from which students at all levels benefited. Other calorimeters were acquired later, through funding agencies, but there are still few Brazilian research centers that have them. To this day, Airoldi uses the calorimeter as his main tool, and the experiences accumulated in this area led him to join the editorial board of the American scientific journal Thermochimica Acta. The dean even reveals some surprise with the Scopus Award, but says he is gratified because the honor is devoid of political connotations.

Modest origin

“My origins are quite humble. I am the grandson of peasants, Italian immigrants from northern Italy – from Milan on my father's side and from Mantova on my mother's side – who initially settled on coffee farms in the Araraquara region. Later, the families moved to the Alta Paulista region, initially to Quintana, where I was born, and then to Osvaldo Cruz, where I finished high school”, says professor Claudio Airoldi. It was under the influence of his high school history teacher, who saw in his student a penchant for research and teaching, that Airoldi moved to São Paulo, 600 kilometers from his city, in search of university and work to support himself.

Airoldi came to chemistry – which was the most difficult teaching subject in high school – almost by exclusion, as he noticed that the teachers were dentists, biologists, mathematicians, physicists and engineers, but none were chemists. “Once at USP, I was taken by the course. I almost came to the conclusion that I was in the wrong course, because of the difficulties and demands, but over time I adapted. Today, if I went back in time, I would do it all over again”, he guarantees.

Claudio Airoldi and his colleague José Atílio Vanin, now deceased, were in the first class of the USP Chemistry Institute (they entered in 1964), and therefore were the most popular targets for work. This circumstance determined their arrival at Unicamp. “It was on my birthday, October 4, 1967, that Professor Geraldo Vicentini came to us after class and said that a new university was being set up in Campinas. He clarified that at the beginning it would only be for teaching, but that we could do our doctorate in parallel at USP.” Airoldi began teaching at Unicamp in 1968 and when he presented his doctoral thesis at the Chemistry Institute in 1970, he was able to effectively return to the interior, as he wanted.