A new member for ALISI’s research team – Alejandro Arzola from Mexico

14.7. 2011 11:39 What is going on

Alejandro Vásquez Arzola (31) became a new member of ALISI’s research team at the beginning of June. This young scientist comes from Oaxaca, Mexico and started his scientific career at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. Since 2004 he deals with the issues of Optical Micromanipulation, Nanotechnologies and Diagnostic Methods. He visited Institute of Scientific Instruments in 2009 as an intership and since the end of 2010 was ISI trying to cooperate with this scientist here in Brno.

Q: When were you deciding about it, what was the main reason to join ALISI and move into Brno?

There were many reasons to decide to come to Brno. As you pointed out, in 2004 I was involved in the recently created laboratory of optical micromanipulation at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). My research interest focus is in the phenomena of transport at microscopic level using optical micromanipulation techniques.

In 2008 in a conference in San Diego CA, I was surprised for the high quality and interesting work presented by members of Dr. Pavel Zemanek's group. They were working in some issues I was interested in. Then when I went back to Mexico I talked with my PhD advisor about this work, and then we decided to try to start a collaboration with Dr. Pavel Zemanek. Dr. Pavel Zemanek accepted the proposal and the possibility of a short research stay in Brno aroused. For me it was not only a scientific challenge, but I had the opportunity to go deep insight into a different culture. Apart from a Czech cartoon that I used to enjoy when I was a child, all I knew about Czech Republic culture was for his famous writers, musicians, etc. Czech Republic sounded to me to the place of Kepler's work, to Kafka, to Milan Kundera, Miloš Forman, Jan Švankmajer, Leoš Janáček, Mendel laws, Villa Tugendhat, people fighting for their freedom, etc. It sounded very nice.

The two-month stay took place in the summer of 2009. I was engaged in a project which dealt with some novel techniques to segregate the components of a mixture of heterogeneous microscopic particles. Moreover, after this so short stay, I was glad for the kindness and hospitality of Moravian people. So the last year, when I was finishing my PhD I decided to do an stay abroad in order to broaden my scientific and cultural knowledge, and, after my previous experience, definitively Dr. Pavel Zemanek’s labo­ratory and Brno was my first option.

Dr. Alejandro Vásquez Arzola between the scientists from Coherence Optics ISI. The director of ALISI prof. Pavel Zemánek stands on the left, Ing. Petr Jákl, PhD. on the right. From http://www.isibrno.cz/…ec/index.php?….

Q: What are the main differences between physical exploratory institutes in Mexico and here in Brno?

I think Brno has an ancient researcher tradition, since Mendel to our days maybe, and if you add the effort scientist have been putting to improve the research institutions, I think Brno is a unique place to do high quality science. At a glance, an important difference I can notice in physical research between Mexico and Brno, is that here in Brno is not rare to do applied Physics in comparison with Mexico where physical research is mainly basic, and mainly theoretical. From a more general point of view, the main difference between Czech Republic and Mexico is that in Mexico nowadays there is a political crisis that marginalizes science and education. While the Czech Republic invest more than 1 percent of the GDB in science, in Mexico, a country of more than 100 million of people, the investment doesn't reach 0.5 of the GPD. In fact, for the lack of opportunities, there are many scientist which have had to emigrate to another country; sadly, nowadays there are more consolidate scientist leaving the country than the ones formed in local institutions. Nevertheless, the academic and scientific communities in Mexico have done a strong effort not to let the annual investment in the National Autonomous University of Mexico (one of the best universities in all Latin America) be reduced and I hope I can contribute in the future to strengthen Mexican science.

Q: The official negotiations about your scientific visa had been long and with many bureaucratic obstructions. Was it worth it? Have your expectations about your stay here been fulfilled till this moment?

The time needed to get the visa was very long. In principle it should have lasted at most two months, but after more than four months without knowing anything about the outcome of my visa application, I was a bit frightened. Actually, I was desperate, and I was thinking to do a short stay in another laboratory for a while. One day, I just had written an e-mail to Pavel telling him about my plans when I received a call from the embassy of the Czech Republic in Mexico telling me that the visa was accepted and we – me and my wife – could flight to Brno a soon as we wanted. One week after, I and my rife were arriving to Brno.

Q: Did you move in here with your family? How do you like Czech Republic, the City of Brno and Czech people? Would you like to live here long-lasting?

I came here with my wife, who is an excellent researcher in plant development. She will start a postdoctoral stay too in August in the Laboratory of Molecular Plant Physiology at the Masaryk University. We were very lucky to find the postdoctoral positions in two very good groups in the same city. We are planning to go back to Mexico once we finish the postdoctoral research. As I said before, I like Czech people and I like the Czech live-style too, so I will learn Czech and will try to get deep insight into the Czech traditions. I am going to enjoy this wonderful country.