


José Bonifácio de Andrada was a Brazilian statesman. He was also a naturalist, mineralist, and professor. He was a significant proponent of Brazilian independence and also spearheaded the abolition project in Brazil. He was of the opinion that a new national capital should be created in Brazil's underdeveloped interior. As a naturalist, he discovered four new minerals.

Carlos Chagas was a Brazilian sanitary physician and bacteriologist. Also a clinician and researcher, he discovered Chagas disease, also called American trypanosomiasis, in 1909. He was working at the Oswaldo Cruz Institute in Rio de Janeiro at that time. He was also the first to discover the parasitic fungal genus Pneumocystis. He founded a nursing school as well.


Peter Wilhelm Lund was a Danish paleontologist, zoologist, and archeologist. He spent most of his life working in Brazil and is considered the father of Brazilian paleontology as well as archaeology. He became the first person to describe dozens of species of pre-historic Pleistocene megafauna and discovered the fossilized remains of human beings among the remains of long-extinct species.



