01.10.2018 | The Leibniz Centre for Tropical Marine Research (ZMT) mourns the loss of Professor Horácio Schneider from the Universidade Federal do Pará (UFPA) in Brazil. The biologist and long-standing partner of ZMT died on September 27 in Fortaleza (Brazil) at the age of 70. "With Horacio, we have lost not only an outstanding scientist who has distinguished himself over many years through innovative research in genetics and molecular biology, but also a close companion of our institute," said Prof. Dr. Hildegard Westphal, Scientific Director of ZMT.
Prof. Dr. Horácio Schneider was a highly recognized scientist both internationnaly and in his native Brazil. At UFPA in Belém he held various high-ranking positions: he was managing rector, deputy rector, vice rector for planning and director of the Institute for Coastal Studies on the Bragança campus. In his last position as Vice Rector for International Relations, he worked intensively on many important international cooperative research projects for the university.
His association with ZMT started in 1995 with the German-Brazilian joint project "Mangrove Dynamics and Management" (MADAM), which he coordinated in Brazil. Prof. Dr. Ulrich-Saint-Paul, former head of the MADAM project at ZMT, says about Horácio Schneider: "Horacio was an outstanding scientist who was very much interested in international cooperation. Without his help, MADAM would never have been a success. In addition, he had become a good friend over the years".
Two years ago, Horácio Schneider last visited ZMT in Bremen to seal the long-standing cooperation between UFPA and ZMT in a new Memorandum of Understanding (MoU). During his visit he also met with Prof. Dr. Martin Zimmer, head of the Mangrove Ecology working group at ZMT and Professor of Mangrove Ecology at the University of Bremen. Prof. Zimmer says: "As a man of conviction, standing up for his idea(l)s with enthusiasm and charisma, Horacio paved the road for a long-standing collaboration between ZMT and UFPA, especially the Campus in Braganca. I personally owe him a warm welcome to the area of Braganca and opened doors to working in Northern Brazilian mangroves.”
Horácio Schneider was born on May 15, 1948, in São Paulo. In Belém, he graduated from the UFPA in Biosciences and received his PhD in Genetics and Molecular Biology from the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS) and Stanford University (USA).
In his academic career he published more than 150 scientific articles in national and international journals, several book chapters, three books in Brazilian publishers and was co-editor of a book on mangrove dynamics and management in Northern Brazil published by Springer. His research was focused on the evolution of vertebrates in general and the primates of the New World in particular, with particular emphasis on phylogeny, using molecular and genetic methods.
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