Oswaldo Frota-Pessoa (1917-2010): a successful three-lane road in science

Abstract

aimed at educating science teachers and research naturalists and deeply influenced Frota's professional life, both as researcher and educator. Based on research projects, the course captivated Frota, and even before graduating he published his first scientific paper, on the taxonomy of a family of plants from the State of Rio de Janeiro. Immediately after graduation in Natural History, he started working as a part-time high-school science teacher, a job he held until 1958. In 1942, he was working at the currently named Institute of Biology of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, where he later on became a part-time staff member (1947 to 1958). In 1958, he moved to São Paulo, following an invitation of Crodowaldo Pavan, then head of the Department of Biology (nowadays the Department of Genetics and Evolutionary Biology, Institute of Biosciences) of the University of São Paulo, where he started a successful academic career that lasted until 1981, when he retired as a full professor.