The dynamics of Brazilian protozoology over the past century

Brazilian scientists have been contributing to the protozoology field for more than100 years with important discoveries of new species such asTrypanosomacruzi and Leishmania spp. In this work, we used aBrazilian thesis database (Coordination for the Improvement of Higher EducationPersonnel) covering the period from 1987-2011 to identify researchers who contributedsubstantially to protozoology. We selected 248 advisors by filtering to obtainresearchers who supervised at least 10 theses. Based on a computational analysis ofthe thesis databases, we found students who were supervised by these scientists. Acomputational procedure was developed to determine the advisors’ scientific ancestorsusing the Lattes Platform. These analyses provided a list of 1,997 researchers whowere inspected through Lattes CV examination and allowed the identification of thepioneers of Brazilian protozoology. Moreover, we investigated the areas in whichresearchers who earned PhDs in protozoology are now working. We found that 68.4% ofthem are still in protozoology, while 16.7% have migrated to other fields. Weobserved that support for protozoology by national or international agencies isclearly correlated with the increase of scientists in the field. Finally, wedescribed the academic genealogy of Brazilian protozoology by formalising the“forest” of Brazilian scientists involved in the study of protozoa and their vectorsover the past century.