Rafael Carvalho da Silva
He/Him
I am gay and and I am a scientist.//
I’m Rafael and I just completed my PhD in Sciences at Universidade de São Paulo, Brazil. During my journey as a graduate student, I investigated which strategies social wasps use to keep living in a cohesive society. I am especially interested to explore how these wasps use chemical compounds to mediate their interactions. During grad school, I also had the chance to travel out of Brazil to study wasps in Belgium and the USA. If I had to define myself with a word, I would choose “curious”. I grew up in a small town where being queer used to be seen as shameful, so since my early days despite all fear I have been trying to occupy spaces I have heard were not for someone like me. My curiosity is something that keeps pushing me toward new challenges and new research questions. I have always been passionate about animals; having the chance to work with them nowadays is extremely rewarding. My main goal is to keep combining different approaches to understand a bit better how (at least social insect societies) work.
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Rafael-Carvalho-Da-Silva