New York – Before she came to study in the United States through the Brazil Scientific Mobility Program, Larissa Almeida Sento Se Nunes never thought chemical engineers had much influence in the world of pharmaceuticals.
But after working an internship this past summer at Merck & Co.—the New Jersey-based international pharmaceutical firm—Nunes has gained a new awareness for the role that chemical engineering students like her might play in developing drugs of the future.
“I didn’t even know that I liked it because I didn’t know about it,” said Nunes, a chemical engineering major at Universidade Federal da Bahia in the Brazilian city of Salvador.
Nunes, who studied last spring and is continuing her studies this fall at the Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, N.J., was one of several students on hand recently at the Institute of International Education Gala 2013.
At the event, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff was presented with the Henry Kaufman Prize for her vision to establish the Brazil Scientific Mobility Program. The prize—named after Henry Kaufman, president of Henry Kaufman & Company Inc., an economic and financial consulting firm—is meant to recognize national leaders and public officials who do distinguished work in the promotion and development of international education at the postsecondary level.
In the U.S., the Scientific Mobility Program began with 587 students but has since grown to 3,673 for the current academic year. More than 1,000 of the students got internships at international companies, Kaufman noted in presenting the award.
