Denise Pires de Carvalho Joins UNESCO as Sciences ADG

The Director-General of UNESCO, Khaled El-Enany has appointed Professor Denise Pires de Carvalho of Brazil as Assistant Director-General for Sciences. This is an important addition of scientific and institutional leadership to the organizational senior leadership for UNESCO.

Prof. Denise will join the Senior Management Team of UNESCO, cooperating with the Organization's Director-General and contributing to the enhanced leadership and influence of the organization within the global science community. Her mandate will include international research cooperation, promotion of open science, knowledge exchange, and cooperation among scientific communities.

Key Highlights:

• Denise Pires de Carvalho joins UNESCO as Assistant Director-General for Sciences
• She brings extensive leadership across research, academia and higher education
• Her mandate advances open science and international scientific cooperation

Denise has an academic background in physiology, higher education management, science policy, and research administration, and hence has gathered a lot of experience in managing scientific research initiatives as well as building up scientific partnerships at the international level. She will help UNESCO in its science-related strategies through her experience in institutional cooperation and scientific initiatives, which link research and innovation to education and sustainable development.

Denise is a full professor from 2011 at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), involved with teaching of physiology and leading the research activities through being a Principal Investigator of the Endocrine Physiology Laboratory. Her educational profile offers an impressive scientific research background demonstrated in about 190 papers. Her experience based on teaching, research, and conducting scientific research has made her an experienced member of Brazilian academia and scientific community.

She is a Doctor of Science in the field of Physiology and Pathophysiology, obtained at Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, in 1994, and holds Master’s Degree in Biological Sciences in the field of Biophysics, obtained in 1989. Denise obtained her Doctor of Medicine degree in 1987.

Denise has played a pivotal role in many leadership positions pertaining to higher education, research governance, and scientific cooperation. Starting July 2025, she acts as President of the Scientific Council of the French National Research Institute for Sustainable Development (IRD), situated in Marseille, where she works on the strategy of scientific research and international cooperation for sustainable development.

Apart from that, she has served as the President of CAPES (Brazilian Federal Agency for the Support and Evaluation of Graduate Education) since February 2024, located within the Ministry of Education, where she is engaged in the development of graduate education and research evaluation strategy and acts as an important member of the academic and scientific community of Brazil.

Denise was appointed as Rector of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ) in 2019 and remained in that role until 2023, being the first woman elected as Rector of this prestigious institution. Under her leadership, she gave strategic guidance to one of the most important universities of Brazil concerning educational, research, and academic matters.

From 2015 to 2024, she occupied several significant academic and scientific leadership positions including acting as reviewer of the Belgian National Fund for Scientific Research and President of the Latin American Thyroid Society that is located in Buenos Aires, Argentina.