More about me

I was born in Recife on January 16, 1990. I moved to Guangzhou in 2014 and then relocated to Pittsburgh with my wife Ruby Cai in 2019. Since 2021, we have been living in Hangzhou. On the right, you can see a recent picture of us in front of CERN in Meyrin, Swizerland in the winter of 2026.

When I am not doing research, I am probably watching TV shows or playing video games. I am a big fan of animated shows like Avatar, Castlevania, Invincible, and seinen anime in general. In general, I like to watch any English-dubbed shows to make sure that I don't get too rusty on my English. My all-time favorite video game series are the ones I grew up playing on the Nintendo 64 and Game Boy: the Legend of Zelda and the old Pokémon series. But lately I've spent more hours in Sid Meier's Civ converting other civilizations to the one true religion — intuitionism — than I'd like to admit. To be fair, I probably could've used the time to write a few extra papers. 

I also love going to Karaoke bars with my wife and friends. I mostly enjoy singing 90s and early 2000s rock songs by Linkin Park, RHCP, One Republic, The Fray, SOAD, etc. and cheesy R&B songs, though I can never reach the cool high notes I would like to. Once upon a time, I could play the guitar and was the lead vocalist of a garage band that never took off. We only had a small concert at a high-school prom...

Learning languages used to be one of my main hobbies. In addition to English and Portuguese, I also speak Spanish and Mandarin comfortably. However, since my Mandarin is mostly limited to oral communications with family, and I have not seriously studied the language since 2014, I can no longer write or read Chinese characters well. I can also understand and read reasonably well in French and read German text if I put up some extra effort. Today, I hardly find any time for learning languages, and English remains the only language I'm fully fluent in for academic talks and conversations.

I don't do much sports today. I sometimes play badminton with my wife and friends. I was a terrible player at first, but I have a sense that I am slowly getting less terrible. Double matches are fun. I was also a dedicated practitioner of Kung Fu for about 10 years. I am nowhere near as skilled as I used to be, but sometimes I still practice the old forms to make sure I don't forget them.