After courageously battling for two years an auto-immune illness during which he continued to perform research and mentor students, ICTP-SAIFR faculty member Eduardo Pontón passed away on June 13 in the presence of family and friends. n honor of Eduardo’s important contributions both in teaching and research, ICTP-SAIFR will organize the Eduardo Pontón Memorial Symposium on Monday October 28. His presence will be greatly missed and friends can leave comments on their interactions with Eduardo at https://sites.google.com/view/ift13062019/home

On June 23, Rogério Rosenfeld (vice-director of ICTP-SAIFR) was elected as the new president of the Brazilian Physical Society (SBF) for the term July 2019-2021. Prof. Rosenfeld served as vice-president of SBF from 2017-2019 and the new vice-president of SBF will be ICTP-SAIFR associate member Caio Lewenkopf (U.Fed.Fluminense).

Luiz Davidovich (president of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences) joined the ICTP-SAIFR as a member of its Steering Committee. Luiz Davidovich is Professor of Physics at Univ. Fed. do Rio de Janeiro and works in quantum optics and quantum information. His many awards include the Admiral Álvaro Alberto Prize, the most important scientific award in Brazil, and Prof. Davidovich served on the ICTP-SAIFR Scientific Council from 2011-2016.

Eleven renowned researchers from Uruguay, Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Bolivia joined the ICTP-SAIFR as Associate Members including Miguel Campiglia, Horacio Cassini, Mucio Constantino, Silvina Dawson, Diana Dulic, Marina Huerta, Oscar Reula, Gustavo Romero, Ines Samengo, Martin Subieta and Gonzalo Torroba.

To celebrate the centenary of the Solar Eclipse of Sobral which confirmed Einstein’s theory of general relativity, ICTP-SAIFR organized in May a one-day course for high-school teachers on relativity, a public lecture presented by Rogerio Rosenfeld (ICTP-SAIFR/IFT-UNESP), and a special edition of Ciência em Diálogo at the IMS museum in honor of the photographer Marc Ferrez with panelists R. Nemmen (IAG-USP), R. Rosenfeld (ICTP-SAIFR/IFT-UNESP) and C. Barboza (Brazilian Society for the History of Science), and moderators N. Berkovits (ICTP-SAIFR/IFT-UNESP) and Sergio Burgi (IMS).