Beatriz Barbuy

Beatriz Leonor Silveira Barbuy
Born	1950 São Paulo, Brazil
Occupation(s)	Astrophysicist, professor
Years active	1970s–present
Known for	Research on chemical composition of ancient stars; vice-president of the International Astronomical Union; L'Oréal-UNESCO Awards for Women in Science laureate
Notable work	Studies on carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen abundances in old stars; leadership in ESO and IAU projects

Beatriz Leonor Silveira Barbuy is a distinguished Brazilian astrophysicist who was named among the 100 most impactful Brazilians by Época in 2009. She holds a professorship at the Instituto de Astronomia, Geofísica e Ciências Atmosféricas (IAG) within the University of São Paulo, serves as vice-president of the International Astronomical Union (IAU), and earned the L'Oréal-UNESCO Awards for Women in Science in 2009.

Career

Barbuy pursued both her undergraduate and master's studies at the University of São Paulo during the early 1970s. The political climate under Brazil’s military regime made domestic astrophysics research particularly difficult due to widespread repression.

In 1978, she relocated to France to undertake her doctoral studies under the guidance of Roger Cayrel at the Paris Observatory. Her dissertation focused on investigating carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen abundances in stars as old as 12 billion years, facilitating insights into the evolutionary history of these elements since the galaxy's inception.

Between 2001 and 2005, Barbuy played a key role in an international initiative spearheaded by the European Southern Observatory (ESO) aimed at understanding the formation of the earliest stars. This project provided detailed analyses of chemical compositions in stars exceeding 10 billion years in age. She also held leadership roles within the IAU’s stellar division, serving first as president and subsequently as vice president.

In recognition of her scientific achievements, she was appointed Commander of the National Order of Scientific Merit by the Brazilian Academy of Sciences in 2005.

Her receipt of the L'Oréal-UNESCO Award in 2009 celebrated her significant contributions to physics during an event hosted at UNESCO headquarters in Paris. Following this honor, she returned to her academic duties at the University of São Paulo.

Selected publications

• David Burstein et al. (2004). "Globular Cluster and Galaxy Formation: M31, the Milky Way, and Implications for Globular Cluster Systems of Spiral Galaxies", The Astrophysical Journal, 614(1), pp. 158–166.
• Beatriz Barbuy, B.V. Castillo, J. Gregorio-Hetem (1992). "A Criterion to Select Li-Rich Giants", Physical Processes in Astrophysics. Proceedings of a Meeting in Honour of Évry Schatzman, Paris. ISBN 3-540-60259-3.