Marcos Santos /USP ImagensCastro, a professor at ESALQ-USP and former director at CAPESMarcos Santos /USP Imagens
Agronomist Márcio de Castro Silva Filho was appointed scientific director of FAPESP, starting from April 2023, by São Paulo State Governor Tarcísio de Freitas. Castro, whose appointment published in the Diário Oficial do Estado de São Paulo (São Paulo State’s official gazette) on April 6, was chosen from a list of three candidates prepared by the foundation’s Board of Trustees. The other two names put forward were Edgar Dutra Zanotto, a materials engineering professor at the Federal University of São Carlos (UFSCar), and Antonio José Roque da Silva, a physicist and general director of the Brazilian Center for Energy and Materials Research (CNPEM) in Campinas. The new scientific director will replace neuroscientist Luiz Eugênio Araújo de Moraes Mello, who held the position since 2020 and decided not to seek a second term. Castro Filho, 62, has a degree in agronomic engineering and a master’s degree in genetics and plant improvement from the Federal University of Lavras (UFLA) in Minas Gerais, and a PhD in molecular biology from the Catholic University of Louvain in Belgium. He was a visiting professor at the University of Melbourne, Australia, and Ohio State University, USA, a member of the Brazilian National Biosafety Technical Commission (CTNBIO), and president of the National Forum of Deans of Research and Graduate Studies (FOPROP). He has also served as head of biological sciences, director of international relations, and director of scholarships and programs at the Brazilian Federal Agency for Support and Evaluation of Graduate Education (CAPES). He is currently a professor at the Department of Genetics of the Luiz de Queiroz College of Agriculture at the University of São Paulo (ESALQ-USP), a member of the Brazilian Academy of Science (ABC), and a member of the São Paulo State Academy of Sciences (ACIESP).
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