Victor Barros

Victor has always been passionate about STEM, and from a young age would play with paper planes and water bottle rockets. This interest was further developed when he was accepted into one of the most disputed entrance exams for federal schools in the country and started studying in a university-like school. There he learned by himself how to program computers out of curiosity and a desire to make his own video games. He also discovered scientific olympiads and funded an engineering club with his friends to work in a multitude of engineering projects.

With his engineering club, Victor designed and built things like robots, a drone, small rockets for the national university-level competition (which achieved second place), and a lot of software and IoT prototypes. His passion for engineering did not stop there as he employed it in the creation of two startups: one to connect volunteers and organizations in his city through a digital platform and another to apply digital solutions and IoT to green urbanism in dense urban centers, both which received awards and recognition.

He also employed his efforts in scientific research, working in a research project at Universidade Federal de Pernambuco in which he developed new methods in distributed computing, including new protocols in distributed file storage, and research project investigating new methods in macroscopic Tesla Valves through computational fluid dynamics and another one investigating scientifically a thermodynamic phenomenon in beer bottles used as a "bar trick" in his school.

For his high academic level in sciences, he was offered a full merit scholarship to continue his High School at Colégio Ari de Sá Cavalcante, where he graduated, following the intense preparation programs for international science olympiads, which were fruitful as he was selected to represent Brazil at the International Young Physicists' Tournament in Beijing and the International Economics Olympiad in St. Petersburg. Overall he accumulates more than 25 awards in national and international science olympiads varying from physics, to astronomy, to robotics and to economics.

Victor also loves to teach students, having created a coding course to other students in his school (which later entered the school's curriculum). He also taught physics to low-income students in his region and mentored promising students in science olympiads, among other initiatives to help promote STEM. In his free time Victor loves to listen and to play music, to play strategy video-games, to read comics and books and to watch cinema. At Columbia, he hopes to explore engineering, focusing on aerospace technology and robotics, as well as exploring his multiple interests such as economics. Victor plans to use his knowledge to advance technology and to stimulate and educate young people in STEM.