The Apoena Network is made up of volunteers from various fields of knowledge who are at different stages in their research, whether in academia, doing their PhDs or working at German universities, in industry or in strategic areas. Below are the nine members who currently make up the Apoena Network management group.
Caio Ponce de Leon R F
He is currently a doctoral candidate in Political Science at the University of Duisburg-Essen and a fellow of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation. He also works as a scientific assistant at the Jean-Monnet Chair for European Integration and European Politics at the Faculty of Political Science in Duisburg. He has a master’s degree in Political Science and International Relations and a bachelor’s degree in International Relations from the Federal University of Paraíba (UFPB).
Dr. Carolina Victoria Junho
She is currently a postdoctoral fellow in cardiovascular physiology at the University of Münster. She has a PhD in biotechnosciences and a bachelor’s degree in science and technology from UFABC in São Paulo. She also received a scholarship from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation from 2022 to 2024.
Christiane Wolf
She studied Latin American Studies and Cultural Studies in Berlin, with an exchange programme at USP. After graduating, she worked for ten years with German-Brazilian co-operation, mainly in the scientific field, in São Paulo. As a scientific manager with a passion for international cooperation, she decided to join Apoena as a ‘German outsider’.
Dr. Claudia Seldin
She is an architect and urban planner specialising in urban-cultural policies, urban marketing and branding, and resistance movements. She has a master’s and doctorate in Urbanism from PROURB/FAU-UFRJ with sandwich periods at Bauhaus-Universität Weimar. She has received grants from CNPq, CAPES, Faperj, DAAD, the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and IRS Leibniz. She currently works as a research associate at the Center for Metropolitan Studies at the Technische Universität Berlin, where she teaches on the Master’s courses in Historische Urbanistik and the Urban Management programme. She joined Apoena to facilitate co-operation between Brazil and Germany and exchange experiences about academic life in both countries.
Emília Inone-Kauffmann
She studied chemistry with a master’s degree from UFSCar. She came to Germany in 1997 to work at the Fraunhofer-Institut für Chemische Technologie, where she has worked ever since as a researcher and is currently deputy director of the Energy Systems division. She decided to join the Apoena Network because she believes in a more structured, focussed, transparent and reciprocal Brazil-Germany ST&I cooperation.
Nathalia Patrício
She is a computer engineer and holds a master’s degree in software engineering from USP. She ended up in Germany on a German Chancellor Fellowship from the Humboldt Foundation, researching Internet regulation at the Centre for Global Cooperation Research at the University of Duisburg-Essen. She decided to join Apoena because she believes in the importance and power of communities.
Silvia Nougués Wargaftig
She studied Linguistics at UNICAMP, Journalism at the Cásper Líbero Foundation and World Heritage Studies at the Brandenburgische Technische Universität Cottbus-Senftenberg (BTU). She is currently Science, Technology and Innovation Advisor at the Brazilian Embassy in Berlin. She joined Rede Apoena because she believes in the enormous power of science, communication and connections between people.
Stephanie Godiva
A historian and linguist who graduated from UFF, she is currently studying for a PhD in Social and Cultural Sciences at Europa-Universität Viadrina and is a fellow of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation. Her main areas of interest include language education, plurilingualism, glotopolitics, migration and borders. She joined Apoena because she is an avid reader of calls for proposals and believes in democratising access and information in order to build an egalitarian world through science.
Dr. Tiago Guedes
He studied Physical Education, with a master’s and doctorate from Unicamp. He worked for 8 years as a professor at the University of Brasilia and is currently a visiting professor in the area of Training Science and Sports Informatics at the Technical University of Munich. He joined the network because he believes it is possible to expand co-operation networks between Brazil and Germany.