Fernando de Mendonça (born December 2, 1924, in Guaramiranga,

Ceará Ceará (, ) is one of the 26 states of Brazil, located in the Northeast Region, Brazil, northeastern part of the country, on the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic coast. It is the List of Brazilian states by population, eighth-largest Brazilian State by ...

) is a Brazilian electronic engineer and researcher, founder and first director of Brazil's

National Institute for Space Research The National Institute for Space Research (, INPE) is a research unit of the Brazilian Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation (Brazil), Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovations, the main goals of which are fostering scientific r ...

Career

Mendonça graduated in

Electronic Engineering Electronic engineering is a sub-discipline of electrical engineering that emerged in the early 20th century and is distinguished by the additional use of active components such as semiconductor devices to amplify and control electric current flo ...

at the

Instituto Tecnológico de Aeronáutica The ''Instituto Tecnológico de Aeronáutica'' (ITA; ) is an institution of higher education maintained by the Brazilian Air Force and is located in São José dos Campos, Brazil. ITA is consistently ranked as one of the top engineering school ...

(ITA) in 1958. After, he received his PhD in Radio sciences from

Stanford University Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...

, in the USA. During his period in the United States, Mendonça established contacts with

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the federal government of the United States, US federal government responsible for the United States ...

in the name of the Brazilian government, contacts that played an important role in the later development of the Brazilian Space Program. After his return to Brazil, he was nominated by President

Jânio Quadros Jânio da Silva Quadros (; 25 January 1917 – 16 February 1992) was a Brazilian lawyer and politician who served as the 22nd president of Brazil from 31 January to 25 August 1961, when he resigned from office. He also served as the 24th a ...

to take part in the preliminary committee in charge of the studies for the deployment of the national space program. When the

(INPE) was founded in 1971, Mendonça became its first director. He was interviewed about his career in 2024, aged 99.

References

External links

Organization and structure of a national system of scientific and technological information - UNESCO (page 8)
1924 births Living people Brazilian scientists {{Brazil-scientist-stub