The Insper scholarship student Arthur Martins de Souza Barreto, in the eighth semester of the Computer Engineering program, has just returned from the summer research program at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, in the United States. He spent two months working on research involving exoplanet identification using parallel computing, supervised by professor Lawrence Rauchwerger from the Department of Computer Science.

During this immersion, Barreto had the opportunity to deepen the study and application of algorithms that he had initiated in the Institutional Program for Scientific Initiation Scholarships (PIBIC) at Insper, funded by the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq). If last year he worked only on the metric of the process, now he implemented the complete programming routine to search for new planets outside the Solar System.

According to Barreto, the task of finding exoplanets requires intensive algorithms because it demands hours of focus on different points in the sky. Each candidate for a new planet must be evaluated by its translation period around the star, the duration of time it remains in front of the star observed from Earth, and the planet's transit reference. To achieve this, Barreto tested the performance of algorithms in various programming tools: C++, PyTorch, OpenMP, MPI, and STAPL — the last one being a library created by Rauchwerger and Nancy Amato, also from the University of Illinois, when they were still teaching at the University of Texas.

The next step of the project is to implement the algorithm on the CUDA parallel computing platform, developed by the graphics card manufacturer NVidia. To make this experience successful, Barreto relied on the knowledge of OpenMP and MPI that were still fresh in his mind, learned in the Supercomputing course in the seventh semester. “It was also crucial to have the help of professor Fábio Ayres, here at Insper, as my advisor for the technological initiation,” says Barreto.

This was his first academic experience outside the country—he had already traveled to Japan, Canada, and Thailand to participate in world robotics competitions. "I loved the experience," he says. "People in Illinois were asking if I intended to return for an M.Sc. or perhaps get directly into a Doctoral Program. Several professors praised the poster of my presentation. They suggested that I write an article for an event that takes place in Washington D.C. I got very excited, and Professor Rauchwerger offered to write a recommendation letter for me if I wanted. I want to go back one day to study there."

One of the peculiarities that caught his attention was how the Doctoral Program students treat each other at the university. "It's like a family," says Barreto. "I got very close to two people: Francisco, who is Mexican, and Marie, who is American. She was the only American at the Parasol Lab. Curious, isn't it? They helped me a lot, in a teacher-student relationship. If I could, I would continue just as it was with them, sitting at the same table and working together on the same project."

Barreto believes he returned more mature from the trip. “I came back a different person,” he states. “My mind opened a lot. I had no idea if I wanted to do graduate study after undergrad. Now I’m more certain about what I want. What motivates me to study something is if the subject is cool and fun to study. If it is different, if someone has already done it or not, and if I can contribute somehow. There was a phrase by professor Brad Solomon at an event called Lunch and Learn. He said that when he started, he researched molecular biology with computing and was sure he wanted to be the best in the world in that field. It was a turning point in my mind.”

In the Lunch and Learn series of the summer program, every Tuesday was filled with guests who talked about topics not covered in the classroom. There were tips on presenting projects, personal and professional communication, creating personal websites and LinkedIn profiles, as well as lectures on various topics, such as biorobotics.

In the eighth period, Barreto is working on the Final Engineering Project (PFE) that emerged from the partnership between Insper and the Renato Archer Information Technology Center (CTI), a research unit linked to the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovations. A previous group of students from the school developed the testing environment and the IP Core of a RISC-V processor, the embryo of the first national chip for a Brazilian satellite. This semester's challenge is to advance the results obtained by the team.

Barreto holds vivid images from the weeks in Illinois: “When I got there, it looked like one of those American college movies. You see those schools and houses just like in the movies. It has nothing to do with Brazil. The teaching and communication style of the professors is totally different. They are more reserved, but my colleagues told me that if they don’t give feedback, it’s because you did a good job. There was a guy there, Greg, really nice, who looked after us. On the 4th of July holiday, he took us out to lunch because we didn’t have food in the dorm.”

The warm interaction even led to a Brazilian night in the summer program. “I brought ingredients to make a feijoada there — black beans, sausage, pepper — and also two cans of condensed milk, so they could get to know a bit of Brazil. They got so excited that they organized a big event for all the students in the program. They even hired a famous chef from Chicago who cooks for Brazilian celebrities. Everyone serving was Brazilian. It was the best night we had, in my opinion.”

Homesickness obviously hit hard, especially due to the interaction with other Brazilians living in Illinois. “If I had no idea before, now I am sure that Brazil is a great country,” he says. “I missed a lot of things from here. We think outside is better, but it’s not. Brazil is very good.”