Robert Leal Lobo e Silva Filho

Honorary Degree Recipient

• Doctor of Science, Purdue University 1991

After completing his initial studies in his native Brazil, [Professor] Roberto Lobo came to Purdue in 1964 as a graduate student in physics. He did his Ph.D. dissertation research under Professor Sergio Rodriguez. His doctoral thesis on "Collective Excitations in Dipolar Systems" opened a new chapter in the physics of polar liquids and was the first of several significant contributions he was to make to physics. After receiving his doctorate, he returned to his homeland and is now one of the most respected and influential scientists in Brazil. He has been a Fulbright Fellow, General Electric Fellow, and Guggenheim Fellow.

Professor Lobo has held a number of important scientific and administrative positions. He has been head of the Instituto de Fisica e Quimica de Sao Carlos and director of the Centro Brasileiro de Pesquisas Fisicas. He was instrumental in the planning and development of the National Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory presently under construction and he is president of its council. Since 1989, he has been Rector of the University of Sao Paulo, the leading institution of higher education in Brazil.

Excerpted from the letter from Professor A. Tubis, Head of the Physics Department, to the members of the Department, April 22, 1991