Dr. Maria A. F. Silva Dias
Vice-President of IAMAS 2007-2011
Director
CPTEC/INPE
Brasil

Fax: +55-12-3101-2835
Email: assuncao@cptec.inpe.br
Web site: http://www.cptec.inpe.br/

Biography

She has a Ph.D. degree in Atmospheric Sciences from,Colorado State University, obtained in 1979. She has been faculty of the Department of Atmospheric Sciences of the University of Sao Paulo, Brazil, (http://www.iag.usp.br/meteo/) for more than 30 years, and since December 2003 is the Director of the Brazilian Center for Weather Forecast and Climate Studies which is part of the National Institute for Space Research (http://www.cptec.inpe.br). She is also President of the Executive Council of the Inter American Institute for Global Change Research (http://www.iai.int), member of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences and Fellow of the American Meteorological Society.

She has advised 26 Master thesis and 11 doctoral dissertations and has published about 70 articles in the international literature. Her research foci include mesoscale meteorology, Amazon Basin convective activity and rainfall, biosphere-atmosphere interaction in the tropics specially the effect of deforestation and biomass burning aerosols on rainfall.