Sylvio Canuto Festschrift a scientist and a friend

Professor Sylvio Canuto was born on June 6th, 1950 in Maceió/AL. He received his B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in Physics from the University of Brasília (UnB) and his Ph.D. in 1979 from Uppsala University, Sweden. He began his academic career as a faculty member in the Department of Physics at the Federal University of Pernambuco (UFPE), where he served from 1980 to 1994, becoming Full Professor in 1989 and Head of Department from 1989 to 1991. In 1994, he joined the Institute of Physics of the Univer- sity of São Paulo (USP), where he has served as Full Professor until 2025 and currently holds the position of Senior Profes- sor. At USP, he was Head of the Department of Materials Phy- sics (2004–2006) and of the Department of General Physics (2008–2012). Professor Canuto has played a prominent role in Brazilian science administration and policy. He served as Pro-Rector for Research at the University of São Paulo from 2018 to 2022. He was a member and later President of the Physics and Astronomy Advisory Committee of CNPq (2000–2002), Coordinator of the Astronomy and Physics Area at CAPES (2011–2018). He also served as President of the Brazilian Physical Society and as General Coordinator for Sciences, Humanities, and Arts at Brazilian Agency/FAPESP. In recognition of his scientific contributions, he was awar- ded the National Order of Scientific Merit, Commander class, in 2018. He has been a CNPq Research Fellow. Professor Ca- nuto has been Co-Editor-in-Chief of Spectrochimica Acta Part A: Molecular and Biomolecular Spectroscopy (Elsevier) since 2016. He is a Full Member of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences (ABC), the Academy of Sciences of the State of São Paulo (ACI- ESP), and The World Academy of Sciences (TWAS). He has authored approximately 300 scientific papers, his publications involve co-authorships with collaborators from 24 different countries, reflecting the international impact and collaborative nature of his research. The editors apologize for the absence of many of Sylvio’s friends and collaborators who would have liked to contribute to this book. We wish Sylvio a happy birthday and hope to return for his 80th birthday. The Editors