Brazil’s new Minister of Science and Technology, Sérgio Rezende, who substitutes Eduardo Campos, took office yesterday, July 21.
Sérgio Rezende has been the president of the Studies and Projects Financer (Financiadora de Estudos e Projetos) (Finep) since 2003.
He majored in electronic engineering at the Rio Catholic University (Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro) (PUC-RJ), graduating in 1963, Rezende did post graduate work at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
From 1984 to 1988 he was the director of the Center of Exact Sciences and Nature, at the Federal University of Pernambuco. In 2002, he was elected vice president of the Internacional Union for Pure and Applied Physics. Rezende is 65 years old.
Social Security
The present executive secretary at the Ministry of Planning, Nelson Machado, is to be the new minister of Social Security, where he will substitute Romero Jucá, a PMDB senator from Roraima.
Machado has been the Ministry of Planning executive secretary ever since Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva took office in January 2003. He was the acting minister when Guido Mantega left to head the Brazilian Development Bank (Banco Nacional de Desenvolvimento Econômico e Social) (BNDES).
Machado has a law degree from the University of Brasília, an M.A. in Budgetary and Financial Administration from the Getúlio Vargas Foundation and a Ph.D. in Accounting and Comptrollership from the University of São Paulo.
He was a top aide in the city of São Paulo’s secretariat of Finances from 1991 to 1992. He has also been the director of the state of São Paulo School of Financial Administration.
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