Hundreds of young students applied to attend the São Paulo Advanced School on Glasses and Glass-ceramics but only 100 were selected for the course.Organiser, the Center for Research, Technology and Education for Vitreous Materials (CeRTEV) of the Federal University of São Carlos (UFSCar), said the large number of applications and the outstanding quality of many made the selection process difficult.The programme covered topics on glass and glass-ceramics including structural characterisation, thermodynamics, crystallisation and properties.The course comprised 11 lectures and three tutorials about the SciGlass database/software.The selection criteria included an analysis of applicants CVs, recommendation letters and the scientific standing of their current research group.The participants included 12 from USA, eight from France, seven from Germany, six from India, three from Italy, three from Colombia, three from Russia, three from China, two from Canada, two from Argentina, two from Turkey, two from the Czech Republic, and one each from Spain, Finland, South Korea, Japan, UK, Portugal and Tunisia, plus about 40 students from Brazil.The course included a ‘fire’ session, where the students had one-minute to ‘sell’ the highlights of their PhD research work, and a guided visit to the Physics and Materials Engineering Departments of UFSCar’s laboratories.The school concluded with the students presenting their research proposals, which were then defended during the final day of the conference.The organiser said all presentations were of high quality and interesting research ideas were proposed. CERTEV’s Prof Edgar Zanotto said: “The vast majority of received feedback indicates that the school was a great success and should be repeated.This was likely one of the largest short courses focusing on glass education worldwide.
“We are confident that the attendees have benefitted greatly from the information and perspectives presented at this school and that they will return home to their on-going research projects with inspiration and new ideas.
“We hope to remain in touch with these future leaders in academic and industrial glass research, to develop collaborations and joint research projects with them and their advisors in the future."
The lectures and other information can be downloaded from http://www.certev.ufscar.br/g-cc-brasil