Leonardo Uieda

Work

I have been working as Professor of Geophysics at Universidade de São Paulo (USP), Brazil, since August 2023. I use tiny disturbances in the Earth’s gravity and magnetic fields to investigate the inner structure of the Earth and it’s evolution through time. These disturbances can be measured on the ground using specialized equipment, onboard dedicated satellites, and even in very small sections of rocks using magnetic microscopes. I also create new mathematical and computational methods for extracting as much information as we can from these datasets.

Map of northern South American with green to yellow color gradient showing mostly yellows in the west, going through greens and finally blues in the ocean
Map of the thickness of the Earth's crust in South America derived from satellite gravity data and seismological data. Yellow means thick crust of 60-70 km, green means moderate thickness of 25-50 km, and blue means thin crust of 8-15 km. From Uieda & Barbosa (2017).

In more technical terms, my main specialities are:

I started working on these topics in 2008 during a research internship under Prof. Naomi Ussami during my time as an undergraduate student at USP, and have continued throughout graduate school at the Observatório Nacional with Prof. Valéria C. F. Barbosa and a postdoc with Prof. Paul Wessel at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa.

Interested in my research or joining my lab? See the Computer-Oriented Geoscience Lab website.

Most of my career has revolved around the development of open-source software for geophysics, mainly Fatiando a Terra and PyGMT. These software underpin and shape all of my research and teaching. My approach to science in general is also heavily influenced by the open source and open science movements. All of the papers, code, figures, slides, and teaching resources I create are freely available under permissive open licences, like CC-BY and BSD.

Photo with a projection screen at the center (slide has a hands-up emoji and the phrase 'I am a self-taugh coder') and a slightly tan man in a red shirt standing in front of the screen.
Photo of me during my first seminar as a new Lecturer at the University of Liverpool, sometime in late 2019.

Before my current position at USP, I was a Lecturer in Geophysics at the University of Liverpool, UK, Visiting Researcher at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, USA, and Professor of Geophysics at the Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. I am and have been involved with several community-led organizations, like the Software Underground and EarthArXiv.

Need a photo?

If you need a photo of me for promotional material (for talks or interviews, for example), use this one. Feel free to crop it however you see fit.

Photo of me, facing the camera at a slight angle and smiling, wearing a stripped white shirt and blue jacket

Photo of me taken at the University of Liverpool’s Central Teaching Laboratories back in 2019. You may use this photo under the terms of the CC-BY license.

Software

Here are some of the open-source software develop:

Non-work interests

Here are some things I enjoy in my limited free time:

Personal

I was raised in Botucatu, a small town about 200 km from São Paulo, Brazil. Since then, I’ve lived in: Ithaca (USA), São Paulo (Brazil), Toronto (Canada), Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), Honolulu (Hawai’i/USA), and Liverpool (UK). Currently, I’m back in São Paulo.

Satellite photo with 3 panels: left is a city with mountains and beaches at the South, middle is a slice of an island with green mountains at the center, right is a brown river delta leading to a murky sea with a city.
Satellite images of Rio de Janeiro (left), Honolulu (middle), and Liverpool (right). Created using xlandsat and public domain data from the Landsat 8 and 9 satellites.

My wife Carol is a biologist and science writer. After quite a few career shifts after her PhD, she now works with outreach and event organization at the Society for Experimental Biology. I’m very lucky that she puts up with me and was willing to go half-way around the world with me throughout this winding career path. We have a wonderful, smart, and strong-willed daughter. I couldn’t be prouder of both of them!

Both of my parents were zoology professors at UNESP, so I’ve been around academia from an early age. A large benefit from this is that I got to learn English in the USA during my parents postdoc at Cornell University. I now realize what an incredible advantage this was for me and I’m eternally grateful to my parents for the opportunity.

Photo of a 10 year-old boy, a middle aged woman, and a 6 year-old girl standing in a creek and all looking at a rock, with the woman pointing to it.
Me, my sister, and my mom looking at some invertebrate hiding under a rock in a creek in Ithaca, USA. Photo taken some time in 1997.

I was a bit of a nerdy kid. I had a Magic The Gathering phase and briefly had a table-top RPG group. I liked playing video games, bike riding, and playing with friends on the street. As a teenager, I had a punk rock phase (yes, that included a mohawk) and I was the lead singer in an indie rock band called Jeca Tatu. We weren’t very good but we had loads of fun playing mostly covers at local festivals and parties at our friends houses. I still enjoy playing games and music during my free time, only now I get to do it with my daughter!

Photo of a guy with curly hair playing the base guitar, me (half-asian guy with short hair playing guitar), a drummer in th background, and another guitar player with brown curly hair.
Jeca Tatu performing at a small festival put together by us and another local band some time in 2004.