Crodowaldo Pavan

Crodowaldo Pavan (Portuguese pronunciation: [kɾodoˈvaɫdu paˈvɐ̃]; December 1, 1919 – April 3, 2009) was a Brazilian biologist and geneticist, and a scientific leader in Brazil.

Pavan was born to a family of second-generation immigrants from Italy in 1919, in the city of Campinas, São Paulo state, Brazil. His great-grandfather was an expert in textile paints and a militant anarchist, who was frequently persecuted and imprisoned in Italy as well as in Brazil for his political activism. As a boy, influenced by his father's porcelain manufacturing plant at Mogi das Cruzes, he wished to follow a career in engineering, but changed radically when he had the opportunity in high school to attend a lecture by noted French physician and professor André Dreyfus and a screening of the film "The Story of Louis Pasteur", starring Oscar-winning actor Paul Muni in the title role.

Following Dreyfus' advice, in 1938 he enrolled in a course of natural history at the University of São Paulo, continuing to work in biological research under his mentor. His doctoral thesis on the subject of the blind cave fish Pimelodella kronei (syn. Typhlobagrus kronci) was completed in the same institution. In 1942, he accepted a position as assistant professor at the University of São Paulo, and quickly became a full professor, a position he held until his retirement in 1978.

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