Tinker Professors
Winter 2015
Amin Bassrei obtained a B.Sc. in electrical engineering at Federal University of Bahia (UFBA), specializing in power system analysis and electronics. He also received a B.Sc. in economics at Catholic University of Salvador. He obtained his PhD in Geophysics at UFBA in 1990, with a dissertation on the application of entropy methods in geophysical inverse problems, supervised by Prof. Tadeusz Ulrych (University of British Columbia). Later, in 2001, he obtained an M.Sc. in Linguistics with a thesis on Iranian languages. In 1994, Bassrei finished a two years post-doctoral training at the Earth Resources Laboratory of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, under the supervision of Prof. Nafi Toksöz. Since 1995 he is a faculty at UFBA, where currently he is a full professor at the Department of Geophysics. Bassrei research interests are seismic inversion and seismic tomography applied to oil exploration and to CO2 geological storage monitoring, statistical analysis in climatology and in geophysical well logs. More recently, he became interested in history of geosciences and geophysics in Brazil and geophysical education in Brazil. Bassrei has numerous publications, including two edited books, and articles in scientific journals, as well as expanded abstracts in international congresses. In total, he has supervised 16 M.Sc. and 6 PhD students of geophysics, some of which he is still supervising. At UFBA he coordinated the geophysics undergraduate program for 4 years, and the geophysics postgraduate program for another 4 years. From 2009 to 2015 Bassrei was the coordinator of the Research Network in Exploration Geophysics, which congregates six Brazilian federal universities (UFPA, UFC, UFRN, UFPE, UFAL and UFBA) and is funded by the Brazilian federal agency FINEP, and he is a member of the steering committee of the Brazilian National Institute of Science and Technology in Petroleum Geophysics (INCT-GP) since 2010, which congregates five Brazilian universities (UFPA, UFRN, UFBA, UENF and UNICAMP) and is funded by the Brazilian federal agency CNPq.
During winter quarter 2016, Professor Bassrei teaches GEOPHYS 212: Topics in Climate Change.
Marcelo Moreira holds a Ph.D. in Economics and an M.A. in Statistics from the University of California at Berkeley. He was a professor at Harvard University and Columbia University, and was elected as a Alfred P. Sloan Fellow in 2006, and as an Econometric Society Fellow in 2012. He is currently a professor at Fundacao Getulio Vargas - RJ, and a member of the editorial board for the Econometrics Journal, Journal of Econometrics, and Quantitative Economics. Moreira worked in labor economics, specifically studying the effect of minimum wage legislation on the Brazilian labor market. His current research is mainly in Econometrics and Statistics, having worked on the following themes: asymptotic theory, identification of simultaneous equations models, inference in the presence of non stationary time series, estimation in panel models, and testing factor models.
During winter quarter 2016, Professor Moreira teaches ECON 103: Econometric Methods: Theory and Applications.
Spring 2015
Dr. María Epele obtained his first degree in Anthropology and PhD (1997) from the Universidad de La Plata, Argentina. She was a post-doctoral researcher at the University of California, Berkeley. She is a professor at the Universidad de Buenos Aires and at the Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales, and also is a Researcher at the National Council for Science and Technology of Argentina (CONICET), where she has been the director of research groups since 2007. Her research focuses on medical anthropology. She investigated several health issues: social inequality, poverty and health vulnerability, HIV-AIDS epidemic, drug use, power and violence, gender and sexuality, Public Health and Latin American perspectives, death and dying and ethnographic methods. At the present time, she is interested in psy knowledge and treatments aimed at disadvantaged populations and their relations to changing characteristics of urban poverty in Buenos Aires Metropolitan Area. Her recent books are: Sujetar por la Herida. Una Etnografía sobre Drogas, Pobreza y Salud (Buenos Aires, Paidós 2010); Padecer, Cuidar y Tratar (Editor, Buenos Aires, Antropofagia, 2013).
During spring quarter 2016, Professor Epele teaches ANTHRO 337B: Anthropological Approaches to Health Issues in Contemporary Latin America.
Fall 2015
Geraldo Wilson Fernandes obtained a B.Sc. in Ecology at Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, specializing in ecological interactions. He obtained his Masters (1987) and Ph.D. (1992) in Ecology at Northern Arizona University under the supervision of Prof. Peter W Price. His masters was devoted to the work on the geography of plant tumors induced by insects (insect galls). His Ph.D. addressed the ecological processes and evolutionary mechanisms influencing the geography and biodiversity of plant galls. Since 1988 he is a faculty at Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, where currently he is a full professor at the General Biology Department. Fernandes current research are primarily on climate change, plant-animal interactions, biodiversity, ecosystem services, and restoration ecology. Fernandes has more than 400 published peer reviewed articles and book chapters, edited three books. He has supervised more than 50 M.Sc. and 40 PhD students in botany, ecology and genetics. He is the coordinator of a Long Term Ecological Site on climate change on mountain ecosystems in Brazil (PELD/CNPq) and the coordinator of the Brazilian program for the Cerrado conservation (ComCerrado MCT/CNPq).
During fall quarter 2015, Professor Fernandes teaches BIO 355: Ecology and Conservation of the Brazilian Cerrado: a neglected Latin American Ecosystem.
Juan Carlos Rulfo was born in Mexico City in 1964. He is a Mexican screenwriter and director son of author Juan Rulfo. He has written, produced, and photographed several films. He graduated B.A. in Communication Sciences from the Metropolitan Autonomous Universty, and film direction at the Centro de Capacitación Cinemtográfica, both in Mexico City. His thesis was a short film entitled ‘Granfather Cheno and Other Stories’ (1995) and was nominated for the Honorary Award for Foreign Film, at the Academy of Film, Arts and Sciences from Hollywood. ‘Juan, I Forgot I Don’t Remember’ (1999), was his first feature-length film, and has received national and international recognition and awards. Since 2001, he is a member of the National System of Creators of the National Endowment for the Arts (FONCA). In 2003 Rulfo received a Guggenheim grant to keep working on memories and language topics. A result of this was his second film, En el hoyo ‘In the Pit’ (2004/06), received national and international recognitions and awards, like the Sundance International Documentary Jury Prize. Since then, he still working on film documentary campus with films like Those who remain, Depanzazo and Carrière, 250 meters.
Film or images in motion have given him the opportunity to dream with his ancestors and to imagine things that may have or have not existed. Film is a fabric of time and space, and memory is the perfect evocative thread for this medium. We can imagine a story out of time and in another space where what matters is not so much the verisimilitude of what is told, but rather the telling of it.
During fall quarter 2015, Professor Rulfo teaches ILAC 279: Searching for identity.
Henry Tantaleán was born at Lima in 1974. He graduated from the National University of San Marcos in 1997. He subsequently earned his Ph.D. (2008) from the Autonomous University of Barcelona. He has taught at San Marcos and the National University of Trujillo. He is an associate of the French Institute of Andean Studies in Lima and is an associate researcher at the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology at UCLA. He has published books and articles in various scientific journals and editorials from his work in the Titicaca Basin and coastal Perú. His work focuses on Andean archaeology, theoretical archaeology, and the relationship between archaeology and politics. He has conducted fieldwork throughout Perú with a special interest in the origins of the prehistoric Andean state. He is currently Co-Director of Chincha Archaeological Program in Perú and Researcher and professor in the Escuela Politécnica del Litoral, Guayaquil.
During fall quarter 2015, Professor Tantaleán teaches ANTHRO 108A: The Formation of Political State in the Peruvian Andes.
Joan Manuel TRESSERRAS (Rubí, Catalonia, 1955) is a Professor at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (Dpt. of Media, Communication and Culture). He has a Ph. D. Communication Sciences (1989) and was Minister of Culture and Media in the government of Catalonia (2006-2010).
During fall quarter 2015, Professor Tresserras teaches ILAC 268: Cultural Policies in Latin America and Europe. 1980-2015.
