Oct 9, 2013
Check out the video of Jonathan Bielaski's photoshoot with Marek Mikunda from Steam Whistle
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Check out the video of Jonathan Bielaski's photoshoot with Marek Mikunda from Steam Whistle
“Retiring for me would be doing another Ph.D., researching other subjects that fascinate me and dedicating more time to the attainment of knowledge. I am a true academic by heart. Retiring is not a relief for me because I do not feel like I have done a day of unpleasant work in my life”.
Name: João B.P. Soares
Occupation: University of Waterloo Professor
Location: Waterloo Ontario
His Journey:
Since a very young age, professor Joao Soares showed a great interest for sciences and nature. He spent several of his summer holidays at home in Brazil, reading science books for fun and playing with chemistry sets that, in those days, had many more chemical reagents than today’s sets:
“I remember being 10 years old and deciding that I wanted to ignore the instructional manual in my kit and just see what would happen if I mixed a bunch of the chemicals together. To my surprise, I was left with a bubbling purple reaction that progressively got very hot. I completely panicked, ran to the bathroom and flushed the whole thing down the toilet only to realize that it wouldn’t flush! There were crystals stuck to the bottom of the bowl and the chemicals permanently stained the toilet purple. My mother was so mad at me that day….”
This love for research and experimentation was only the beginning of his path towards a future in science. At the age of 18, Joao was admitted to the Chemical Engineering program at the Federal University of Bahia and he quickly fell in love with his new profession. After receiving his bachelor’s degree, João completed a master’s program in Chemical Engineering at the State University of Campinas and then found a job in a company located in a major petrochemical complex near Salvador Brazil.
João worked as a research and development engineer for about five years but after a certain time he felt that he would not be able to keep pursuing his true passion in chemical engineering research without having the proper PhD training. In 1990 he was admitted in the PhD program in Chemical Engineering at McMaster University in Hamilton, ON, and moved with his whole family to Canada.
After successfully defending his thesis in December 1994, he joined the faculty in the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of Waterloo in January 1995 as an Assistant Professor. He was promoted to Associate Professor in 1999, and to Professor in 2003.
Today, Joao Soares has published more than 150 articles in international scientific journals, written 12 book chapters, and just completed a full book on his main area of interest. He is the Editor-in-Chief for the Canadian Journal of Chemical Engineering, a member of the Executive Advisory Board of Wiley-VCH Macromolecular journals and a Fellow of the Chemical Institute of Canada. He has received the Premier’s Research Excellence Award, the Union Carbide/Dow Innovation Recognition Award, and the Syncrude/CSChE Canada Innovation Award for contribution to Chemical Engineering under the age of 40. He is also a consultant for several polyolefin-manufacturing companies in Canada, USA, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East.
A purple toilet was a small price to pay for what turned into such a rewarding and successful career. His mother is no longer mad.
Photography: Jonathan Bielaski (www.jonathanbielaski.com) Production & Writing: Gabriela Soares (www.gsmakeupart.com)