An interview with Ajalmar Maia

Abstract

It is a pleasure to talk about the life of a winning man. Brazil is rich in stories as the one that I am about to tell in this interview, but poor in acknowledging their value. Ajalmar Maia was born in Umarizal, a small town in the interior of the state of Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil. One of the sons of a large family of humble origins, quite common in the middle of the last century, he started working at an early age as a sales assistant and spent his teenage years in several jobs, which I am not going to describe to avoid losing focus on his greatest virtue: his tenacious quest for knowledge. Even when working very hard, Ajalmar never left school. At the age of 17, he joined the Brazilian Air Force, his second mother in his own words. While in the Air Force, he entered the School of Dentistry of the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte (UFRN), Brazil. His intelligence, not equaled by many, associated with immeasurable strength to work and determination to learn eventually led him to unequaled success in his profession. Dr. Ajalmar Maia specialized in Orthodontics in the School of Dentistry of Lins and got his Master's Degree in the School of Dentistry of Bauru (FOB), University of São Paulo (USP). He returned to Natal, already a professor at UFRN, and met his wife and fellow dentist, Nair, mother of his three children (Najwa, Nayara and Ajalmar), working companion and life partner. After that, he obtained his doctorate also at FOB/USP. A model of success in private clinic not matched by any I have ever seen in Brazil, he also has time to write several books, from poetry to Dentistry, and dozens of scientific articles. After all that, he returned to Bauru for a postdoctorate program, mentored by Professor Guilherme Janson, one of the interviewers in this section. Professor Ajalmar is more than it all together: writer, poet, professor, airplane pilot, composer that won several music festivals in the region where he lives, and a great fan of Brazilian popular culture. Ajalmar is a rich fruit of the Brazilian Agreste region, who did not give in to the scorching sun and that used education to grow as an example of success in our profession.