Friday, May 18

Today we traveled to Mackenzie University to work with some engineering students there on a sustainable energy research project. We first toured the campus, which actually reminded me a lot of Northeastern. They are in the middle of the city but their campus is very private. They actually have gates at all the entrances so only students can get onto the campus grounds. Inside was filled with students, nicely landscaped, and very nice and modern buildings.

The oldest private library in Brazil, on Mackenzie's campus.

The University was formed in the 1860's by an American Presbyterian minister. Since then, it has grown and strives to provide students with an American-style education. The students we talked to told us how in Brazil, the public universities are actually the best institutions with very low acceptance rates. They are also free for students. Still, Mackenzie is a good school and they do a lot of research with engineering.

Northeastern's grounds crew is put to shame.

We had a lecture from Professor Pfluger, then broke off into groups to work on a project. We are going to be coming up with strategies to promote sustainable energy use in both Boston and Sao Paulo. The winning Brazilian students will actually get a free trip to visit Boston and Northeastern, so the students are actually quite excited to work on the project. The Brazilian student we are with, Eduardo, is a 27 year-old materials engineering student. He is a pretty cool guy.

A mural criticizing hydropower's impact on Native Brazilians.

After this, we returned for a lecture from a Mackenzie professor on Brazil's energy system. Because they are so reliant on hydropower in the north, their system must transmit electricity 1000's of kilometers to the big cities, which are in the south. This means they have quite large efficiency losses. We then traveled home, where we celebrated Professor Pfluger's birthday. She was lucky enough to celebrate her special day with us, so we got her chocolate, wine, flowers, and a card. We all had birthday cake and then went out for pizza. Now we're getting ready to go samba dance the night away.

Puffy boi