Astrobiologist of the Month
July
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Every month we feature two astrobiologists from around the world. Our aim is for everyone to get to know each other, connect and network. If you would like to be featured, let us know here.
✉️ beatriz [at] caxias [dot] ufrj [dot] br
🌎 Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Opportunities
Undergraduate students
BEATRIZ SIFFERT
“I am a Brazilian physicist from Rio de Janeiro working with Cosmology and Astrophysics. Recently, Astrobiology captured my interest, thanks to the Biology undergraduate students I teach Physics to. Currently, I work with supernova detection within the J-PAS collaboration and with astrobiology with the RioAstrobio research group.”
Position
Professor of Physics at Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro
Career Pathway
I consider my career pathway very diversified, at least within the cosmo/astro context.
I did my Bachelors in Physics at the Instituto de Física at Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), during which I started to work with Prof. João Torres de Mello Neto, who became my PhD advisor, within the Pierre Auger collaboration. In 2008, I got my PhD, also at UFRJ and in collaboration with the University of Chicago and Prof. Angela Olinto, on the anisotropy of the highest energy cosmic rays detected at Auger.
Afterwards, I was a postdoctoral fellow at Università Federico II, in Naples, Italy, where I worked with indirect detection of dark matter in galactic halos. I came back to Brazil in 2010, where I worked as a postdoc for one year with observational signatures of bouncing cosmological models, at Centro Brasileiro de Pesquisas Físicas. I was also a postdoc at the Instituto de Física of UFRJ, where I started working with supernova detection within the J-PAS collaboration.
In 2016, I became a professor at UFRJ (campus Duque de Caxias) where I teach Physics to undergraduate students in Nanotechnology, Biotechnology and Biophysics.
Research Topics
Development of the pipeline for transients detection within the J-PAS collaboration and studies of habitability on exoplanets.
Why did you decide to become an Astrobiologist?
My undergraduate students in Biophysics and Biotechnology were very interested in Astrobiology! Since then, I have added this topic to my research interests list.
If your lab/research group had a nickname, what would it be?
RioAstrobio
Are you accepting students?
Undergraduate students