Yale-Proxima Mentorship Program.
Empowering the next generation of brazilian scientists.
Applications are closed!
Applications for the 2025 Yale-Proxima Mentorship Program closed on November 15, 2024. You will be notified of your application status in early 2025. If you have any questions, please email us at contato@iniciativa-proxima.org
Program highlights.
Workshops.
Engage in monthly sessions with leading scientists, professors, and professionals who share their expertise on a diverse range of topics. These interactive workshops are designed to enhance your skills and broaden your knowledge base.
Mentorship.
Benefit from personalized guidance through group and individual sessions with Ph.D. students and postdocs at U.S. higher education institutions. Our mentors provide invaluable insights and support tailored to your academic and professional interests.
Career Development.
Participate in sessions focused on practical strategies for career planning and personal growth. These sessions are offered both individually and in groups, and are led by José Carlos Barreto Jr.
Join us.
Join us in inspiring, teaching, and empowering the next generation of brazilian scientists. An initiative born at Yale University, the Yale-Proxima Mentorship Program is your gateway to a future of scientific discovery and leadership.
Be part of a vibrant community dedicated to scientific excellence and societal improvement. As a participant, you will have access to a network of researchers and peers, empowering you to become a leader in your field.
Meet the mentors.
Jessica is currently pursuing her Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering at Yale. She received her B.Sc in Biomedical Sciences from the Universidade Estadual de Santa Cruz (UESC), Brazil, with further research experience from McGill University, Canada, and Harvard School of Public Health, USA. Upon graduating from UESC, she received her fully funded master’s degree in Biomedical Sciences from Radboud Universiteit, Netherlands. She concluded her program at the Department of Immunobiology at Yale University and worked as a Postgraduate Research Associate at the Department of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging.
Lucas is a graduate student in the Microbiology Program. Has a Bachelor’s degree in Biomedical Sciences from CEUMA University (MA), and a master’s degree in Genetics and Molecular Biology from the Federal University of Goias (UFG-GO). Currently a Biological and Biomedical Sciences Ph.D. student in the Microbiology department at Yale University. Lucas studies ancient bacterial organisms to uncover novel biochemical processes for RNA molecules at the Breaker Lab. Always happy to help anyone looking for opportunities in research.
Natália Matos, originally from Ceará, Brazil, is currently a fourth-year Ph.D. student in neuroscience at Yale. She has joined Professor Damon Clark’s lab, where she investigates the principles and mechanisms of visual processing in fruit flies. She hopes to uncover specific details on how neural circuits drive behavior while keeping an eye on the bigger picture inherent to neuroscientific research. To achieve this last goal, Natália has co-funded a discussion group on the philosophy of neuroscience that has expanded into a speaker series, bringing together scholars from around the world. Natalia believes that her scientific path was paved by the support of multiple people along the way. She is thus looking forward to assisting other Brazilian students achieve their goals.
Renata is currently doing her Masters of Public Health in Global Health at Harvard as an interlude in her Ph.D. in Theoretical Neuroscience at Columbia University. She holds a bachelors in Applied Mathematics and another in Molecular Sciences, both from the University of São Paulo. Her research interests span the intersection of mathematical modeling and data analysis with biology and healthcare. She works as a data scientist for Hospital Albert Einstein in a project to integrate AI in Brazil’s public health system SUS and she is passionate about using technology to help improve access to care in Brazil.
Victória is a third-year Ph.D. student in the Department of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology at Yale University. For her undergraduate degree, she studied Veterinary Medicine in Brazil, but switched her major/minor to Biology and Chemistry when she moved to the U.S. She completed her bachelor’s degree at Northeastern Illinois University, before starting her graduate school journey at Yale. Her research is focused on nuclear envelope dynamics and chromatin organization during mitosis. Victória is excited to help and share experiences with other Brazilian students.
Vinicius Suzart received his BSc degree at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ) in Brazil before moving to the U.S. to work as a research assistant at CWRU. Vinicius joined the Biomedical Research Training Program (BSTP) in July 2021 and his previous experiences include research on CAR-T cell therapy, HIV-1, Zika virus, and SARS-CoV-2. His graduate work focuses on applying cutting-edge technology and immunological assays to investigate human CD4 T cell recognition of Mtb-infected macrophages.
We thank our past mentors for their contributions.
- Anderson Brito (2021)
- Antonio Oliveira Fonseca (2021)
- Bruna Mafra (2021-2022)
- Carolina Piletti Chatain (2021-2022)
- Gabriel Belem de Andrade (2021)
- Gustavo Madeira Santana (2021-2022)
- Ilze Olivi Gomes (2022)
- João Victor Teixeira Gomes (2022)
- Ligia Boisserand (2021)
- Marcus Vinicius Pinto Pereira Junior (2023)
- Valter Vinicius Silva Monteiro (2022-2023)