Retrospective 2024: seminars broaden academic repertoire

02/01/2025

Throughout the year, different meetings were held to broaden the undergraduates’ knowledge of scientific research, exchange experiences and connect with professionals from academia and the job market. IMPA researchers visited the undergraduate program’s headquarters in the port area and gave talks to the students. In addition, the students themselves, divided into committees, also organized displays of academic work and were evaluated by external guests.

IMPA Seminars – June and July/2024

Lucas Nissenbaum, a project scientist at IMPA, was the first guest to bring undergraduate students closer to the institute’s research themes. With the theme “Modeling Applications as Mathematical Problems”, he shared personal experiences, addressed topics of interest in research, such as machine learning, computer science and data science, and spoke about his work at the Pi Center (IMPA’s Center for Projects and Innovation).

Student Bianca Moreno was curious to learn more about IMPA’s projects. “I found the topics Nissenbaum covered very interesting, especially the problem-solving methods. The lecture made me curious to find out more about IMPA’s day-to-day activities and made me want to find new solutions to complicated things,” she said.

In July, IMPA researcher Roberto Imbuzeiro spoke about probability and linear algebra. With the theme “The random explorer in a maze of data”, he used real-world examples to illustrate mathematical issues, such as electoral polls and the traditional game of heads or tails, which were used to talk about data analysis and margins of error in studies.

1st IMPA Tech Xenolinguistics Exhibition – July/2024

Undergraduate students also presented their work at Porto Maravalley. In July, under the supervision of Language Skills teacher Cilene Rodrigues, the students organized the 1st IMPA Tech Xenolinguistics Exhibition. On that occasion, they presented the discipline’s first works, projects based on hypothetical languages, the “alien languages”, which have syntax similar to that of human languages.

The teacher explained that the idea behind the project is to invert the logic of traditional teaching by offering students the tools to learn. “The xenolinguistics project works like an inverted classroom because it is the student who formulates the project, creates and nurtures a language. From this construction, the students learn how to structure a language and then understand how a grammar works,” he said.

In addition to Cilene, the judging panel was made up of other linguists from invited institutions and mathematicians from IMPA. Milton Jara, Professor of Calculus at IMPA Tech, doctoral student Ana Cristina Araújo and post-doctoral student Daniel Yukimura represented IMPA. Professors Marcus Maia (UFRJ), Aniela Improta (UFRJ), Maria Eugenia Duarte (UFRJ) and Leonardo Berenger (PUC-Rio) were the guest linguists.

In September, students also took the project developed in the classroom to the stage of the National Mathematics Festival in Marina da Glória.

Model United Nations – October/2024

Also during the activities of the Language Skills subject, the undergraduate students organized the 1st edition of IMPA Tech’s Model United Nations. Divided into groups in the classrooms, three discussion assemblies were organized: Pathways to free and quality education; Poor food distribution; and Creation of a general data protection law.

Based on historical and social research, the students were divided into country delegations and discussed international agreements, historical commitments and possible sustainable alternatives to the problems of our time. Real examples were debated, such as Brazil’s return to the hunger map in 2022 and the approval of the General Data Protection Law (LGPD) in 2018.

Professor Cilene Rodrigues emphasized that an interdisciplinary degree is fundamental to forming students with humanity and empathy. “Throughout this year of work, they have developed communication skills and interacted with open themes. These activities are ways of working on our professional behavior and thinking about our basic research to discuss humanity’s challenges,” she said.

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