By Graciele Oliveira
Guilherme Andrade Marson, coordinator of the C2PO Education and Communication Working Group, received the QInt Jaílson Bittencourt de Andrade Award from the Brazilian Chemical Society (SBQ) during the 49th Annual Meeting of the Brazilian Chemical Society (RASBQ).
Established in 2016, the QInt Jaílson Bittencourt de Andrade Award honors professors and students who have made original and creative contributions to chemistry education in a variety of formats, including text, experiments, music, images, and videos, across all areas of chemistry. Marson explains that “the award specifically recognizes contributions to chemistry teaching and outreach, especially those related to technology.”
A professor at the Institute of Chemistry of the University of São Paulo, Marson has dedicated his career to research in two main areas: the public image of chemistry and the democratization of this field of knowledge; and the educational applications of information and knowledge technologies for chemistry teaching. He highlights that one of the challenges in the field is that “chemistry explains what you see using what you cannot see, in a language you do not speak,” adding that “the scientific denialism we experience as a whole ultimately involves chemistry as well.”
At C2PO, Marson seeks to bring together people with distinct expertise and knowledge in a team focused on democratizing knowledge, connecting what happens in the scientific world with what happens in society. At the Center, together with the Working Group and C2PO collaborators, he contributed to the creation of the undergraduate course We Need to Talk About Cancer: Interdisciplinary Projects to Combat Misinformation and Prejudice (“Precisamos Falar de Câncer: Projetos Interdisciplinares de Combate à Desinformação e Preconceitos”), as well as training programs for primary and secondary school teachers.
The award from SBQ is not the first recognition in the career of the researcher from the Department of Fundamental Chemistry at the Institute of Chemistry of USP. Among his most recent honors are the Professor Rubens Murilo Marques Award, granted by the Carlos Chagas Foundation (2021), for his work Intertwined Pathways: The Journey from Student-Teachers to Teacher-Students (“Percursos entrelaçados: a travessia de alunos-professores a professores-alunos”) through Activities Developed at Lab Vivo, which connected the educational experiences of undergraduate teaching students and high school students through an extension course focused on mitigating misinformation; and the More Art, More Culture – Visual Arts Award, granted by the University of São Paulo (2017).
Guilherme concludes by explaining the relationship between chemistry and cancer research at C2PO: “The global challenge of science communication is linked to misinformation. Chemistry is, in a way, involved in this, of course, isn’t it? You cannot talk about modern healthcare without talking about molecular healthcare. And if it is molecular, it is chemistry.”
