Short biography

First degree in Mechanical Engineering from the Military Engineering Institute (IME) in 1980. M. Sc. in Statistics from IMPA in 1983. Ph. D. in Statistics from University of Warwick in 1987. Professor of Statistics at UFRJ from 1996 to 2019. Professor Emeritus at UFRJ since 2021.

Supervises graduate students and post-doctoral researchers. 

Author of the books:

• Monte Carlo Markov Chain: Stochastic Simulation for Bayesian Inference, published by Chapman & Hall in 2006 (2nd edition, with Hedibert F. Lopes), and 1997 (1st edition) and forthcoming in 2026 (3rd edition, with Hedibert F. Lopes and Flavio B. Gonçalves)

• Statistical Inference: an Integrated Approach published by Chapman & Hall in 2014 (2nd edition, with Helio S. Migon e Francisco Louzada), and 1999 (1st edition, with Helio S. Migon)

• Building a Platform for Data-Driven Pandemic Prediction: From Data Modelling to Visualisation - The CovidLP Project, published by Chapman & Hall em 2021, with Marcos Prates, Thais Paiva e Vinicius Mayrink, as coordinator of Project CovidLP

Also published books and monographs in Portuguese. 

Papers published in many statistical journals including Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, Series B & C, Biometrika, Statistics & Computing, Bayesian Analysis, Annals of Applied Statistics, and Journal of Multivariate Analysis, and also in the multidisciplinary journal Science.

Foundational and Opening Lecturer at the 2024 and 2004 respectively editions of the World Meeting of International Society for Bayesian Analysis (ISBA) and invited lecturer at 14th BISP (forthcoming), International Meeting of the Psychometric Society (2019), the 8th. International Valencia Meeting on Bayesian Statistics (2006) and 17th International Workshop on Statistical Modeling (2002) and at various other scientific meetings. 

Visiting lecturer at UFMG (2019-2021), Carlos III-Madrid (2007), Connecticut (2002), University College London (1994) and Duke (1992). Colaborador honorífico of Universidade Rey Juan Carlos in Madrid. 

Invited seminars at many universities in Brazil (USP, UNICAMP, UnB, UFMG, UFRGS, UFPE, UFSCar, UFRN, UFBA, UFPR, UFPb, IMPA and PUC) and abroad (London, Oxford, Bath, Lancaster, Warwick, Washington, Johns Hopkins, Duke, Chicago, Maryland, Minnesota, Munich, Trondheim, Rome, Madrid (Carlos III and URJC), Milan, Valencia, Lisbon, Wollongong, Cape Town, ITAM and UNAM).

Current Associate Editor of Statistical Modeling, International Statistical Review and Environmetrics, former AE of Brazilian Journal of Probability and Statistics, Journal of Educational and Behavioral Statistics, Statistical Methods and Applications and Revstat Statistical Journal, and ex-member of the Advisory Board of Bayesian Analysis. Former member of the Boards of Directors of ISBA (International Society for Bayesian Analysis) and ABE (Brazilian Statistical Association). 

Organizer of the 8th Brazilian Meeting on Bayesian Statistics in 2016, 1st. and 2nd. Brazilian Congresses on Item Response Theory in 2009 and 2011, the 14th. Brazilian Simposium on Probability and Statistics in 2000, the 4th. Brazilian School of Time Series and Econometrics in 1991 and the International Workshop on Hierarchical Modelling in 1993.

Current research interests include dynamic models, extreme value theory, item response thoery, spatial statistics, survival analysis, and Bayesian computation.